Lot Essay
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The Shower, tempera on panel, 15¼ x 15½in., 1943, private collection
Study for 'The Shower' was executed as a preparatory drawing for the egg tempera painting of 1943 The Shower (private collection). Lincoln Kirstein has written, "Of all Cadmus's Fire Island paintings as dominant beachscape, The Shower is the most loving in its imagery of evanescent perfection of life and light. Here, three close friends share absolute, if transient, reversion to that state of nature. . . a well-soaped, sun-bronzed swimmer. . . is framed in a lean screen of slats, a trim, minimal shelter set on sleek drifted dunes. In the middle distance a golden girl draped in thick, striped towelling dispassionately disregards another boy, already bathed, seated relaxed in a dark glow of ease against the shower screen." (Paul Cadmus, New York, 1984, p. 63)
The Shower, tempera on panel, 15¼ x 15½in., 1943, private collection
Study for 'The Shower' was executed as a preparatory drawing for the egg tempera painting of 1943 The Shower (private collection). Lincoln Kirstein has written, "Of all Cadmus's Fire Island paintings as dominant beachscape, The Shower is the most loving in its imagery of evanescent perfection of life and light. Here, three close friends share absolute, if transient, reversion to that state of nature. . . a well-soaped, sun-bronzed swimmer. . . is framed in a lean screen of slats, a trim, minimal shelter set on sleek drifted dunes. In the middle distance a golden girl draped in thick, striped towelling dispassionately disregards another boy, already bathed, seated relaxed in a dark glow of ease against the shower screen." (Paul Cadmus, New York, 1984, p. 63)