The Fleet's In!

Inscriptions

Signed, in graphite, lower right margin: Paul Cadmus

Label

Drunken sailors and a marine socialize with civilians while on shore leave. On the right is a scene that has often been read as a romantic encounter between a marine and male civilian: the civilian, dressed in a suit, offers the marine a cigarette (a phallic symbol) as the two men hold each other’s gaze. This print is based on a painting of the same name by Cadmus, which the U.S. Navy removed from a 1934 exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C. for the way it queers the figure of the military serviceperson. As a response to the painting’s censorship, Cadmus created many copies of this print, allowing it to reach an expanded audience.

From the 2023 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 110, Constructing the Ideal Soldier, curated by Nathan Savo '24, Class of 1954 Intern

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 110, Constructing the Ideal Soldier, Nathan Savo, Class of 2024, Curator, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 7 January - 26 February 2023

Published References

Una E. Johnson Paul Cadmus: Prints and Drawings, 1922–1967. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, 1968, fig. no. 79, ill.

Provenance

Ilse Martha Bischoff (1901-1990), Hartland, Vermont; given to present collection, 1950.

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Subjects