Francisco

Inscriptions

Signed, upper left: Cadmus; on reverse of frame: Francisco by Paul Cadmus oil, 1933 and 1940 / Midtown Galleries N.Y.

Label

As a fellow artist and the lover of Jared French, whose work is also exhibited in this gallery, Paul Cadmus developed a keen interest in portraying urban subjects through a lens of eroticism and social critique. His distinctive style of “magic realism,” which combines meticulous attention to detail with an introspective exploration of the subject, is exemplified in this portrait of a factory worker. A preparatory sketch of the same work also in Hood’s collection includes the artist’s note with the subject’s full name, Francisco Femenias. In this final painting, Cadmus emphasizes the subject’s physical presence rather than his occupation, conveying both a monumental stature and an introspective mood.

From the 2026 exhibition Nurturing Nationhood: Artistic Constructions of America, 1790-1940, curated by Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow), Michael Hartman (former Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), and Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections)

Course History

SART 25.01, Painting I, Viktor Witkowski, Winter 2022

SART 25.02, Painting I, Viktor Witkowski, Winter 2022

SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/III, Jen Caine, Winter 2022

SART 25.01, Painting I, Danielle Genadry, Summer 2022

Studio Art 31.01, Studio Art 72.01, Painting II, III, Andrew Shea, Fall 2023

Exhibition History

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Paintings from the Dartmouth Collection, 1910-1960, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 17-April 12, 1998.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 22-December 31, 2000.

Curator's Choice: Dartmouth College Permanent Collection, Jaffe-Friede, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 29, 1976-January 16, 1977.

Marks of Distinction: Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 29-May 29, 2005.

Nurturing Nationhood: Artistic Constructions of America, 1790-1940, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; February 7-August 29, 2026.

Publication History

Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Cadmus, New York: Chameleon Books, Inc., 1992, ill. p. 23

Treasures of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, New York: Hudson Hill Press, 1985, p. 148, no. 144.

Barbara J. MacAdam, Marks of Distinction, Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, Manchester, Vermont: Hudson Hills Press, 2005, pp. 164, ill. p. 166, fig. 82.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 91, no. 67.

Provenance

Collected by Coleman Morrison Fitch (1902-1969), New York; bequeathed by C. Morrison Fitch to present collection, 1969.

Catalogue Raisonne

Philip Eliasoph, Paul Cadmus: Catalogue Raisonne, Paintings, 1931-1977, no. 48 (Fairfield, Conn.: published by author, 1977)

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