Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Books and Radio (Study for a "Study for a David and Goliath")

Paul Cadmus
1904-1999

Books and Radio (Study for a "Study for a David and Goliath")

ca. 1971
9 1/2 x 8 inches (24.1 x 20.3 cm)
Colored crayons on black paper.
2005.42

Bequest of John M. Thayer.

© Paul Cadmus / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Notes
This drawing is a preparatory study for a 1971 painting called "Study for a David and Goliath." Inspired by Caravaggio's renderings of the subject, this detail includes a book open to one of Caravaggio's paintings, "Cupid as Victor," rendered sketchily. The artist appears in the final composition as the decapitated, yet cheerful, giant. Lincoln Kirstein writes, " Cadmus's interpretation of this paradoxically unequal struggle is balanced by affection .... A wry, semi-geriatric giant, having lost his head in love, is actually winner over loneliness, age, and estrangement."
Inscriptions/Markings
Signed in crayon at lower right, "Cadmus"; inscribed below, "Cadmus" and "Study for Study for a David and Golitath: Books and Radio (a.)".
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings