Navy's Man

"Thanks to the Navy," wrote Artist Paul Cadmus to the director of Manhattan's Midtown Galleries several weeks ago, "I have not previously found it necessary to have a one-man show. But now . should like to see, a group of my paintings shown in your galleries." Director Alan D. Gruskin went to work, and last week opened the first one-man show of 32-year-old Artist Cadmus. Around the walls sailors tousled their trollops, perverts beckoned from a cafeteria washroom, sagbellied Babbitts diddled in Y.M.C.A. locker rooms, slatterns rioted on public beaches, for these are the principal aspects of U. S. life that attract Artist Cadmus attention, and he shrewdly draws and crudely colors them.

When Artist Cadmus talks about his dependence on the U. S. Navy, he means its 78-year-old veteran Admiral Hugh Rodman. In 1933, already spotted by scouts as a promising etcher with a strong satiric bent, Paul Cadmus returned from two years in Majorca, found commissions hard to get. From the Public Works of Art Project he received an average of $35 a week to stay in his own studio, paint what he liked. What he liked was a group of U. S. sailors having raucous and somewhat indecent fun with their molls on Riverside Drive. He called it The Fleet's Inl Down to Washington it went, where Admiral Rodman, Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson, and dozens of other brass hats proceeded to have tantrums. Cadets of West Point begged for a chance to hang it in a place of honor, but the painting was discreetly hidden to avoid further outbursts. Commented Artist Cadmus: "It's funny they should make a fuss. Everybody knows what sailors do."

Paul Cadmus reputation was made by the Navy's pother. Since then his pictures have been bought by five U. S. museums. Sponsored by the Treasury Department Art Project, he recently completed four mural panels entitled Aspects of Suburban Life, three of which have been assigned to the billiard room of the American Legation Building at Ottawa. In these murals, exhibited in last week's show, shop girls stroll on main street, paunchy tycoons play golf, social climbers watch a polo game.

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