Paul Cadmus

Paul Cadmus
1904-1999
Study for What I Believe
1947-1948
Graphite, with brown ink, with white opaque watercolor, on gray paper; verso rubbed with green pastel.
5 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches (14 x 19.1 cm)
Bequest of John M. Thayer.
© Paul Cadmus / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
2005.39
Notes: 

This study shows the figure of Death, represented as a gravedigger who lays aside his spade in disgust, from Cadmus's 1947-48 allegorical painting "What I Believe." The painting, which takes its title from an essay by EM Forster, was inspired in part by Cadmus's admiration for the writer, with whom he began corresponding in 1943.

Inscription: 

Signed in black crayon at upper right, "Cadmus".

Provenance: 
Midtown Galleries, Inc., 20 December 1983; John M. Thayer, Wilmington, DE.
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