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Dimensions: 10 3/4 by 9 3/4 in. (37.3 by 24.8 cm)
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Provenance: Flora Whitney Miller (sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 28, 1987, lot 332, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale
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Exhibited: Wichita, Kansas, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University; Oxford, Ohio, Miami University Art Museum; Yonkers, New York, The Hudson River Museum, Paul Cadmus: Yesterday and Today, November 1981-July 1982, no. 27
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Cadmus, French, and Tooker: The Early Years, February-May 1990
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Literature: Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Cadmus, New York, 1984, pp. 61-63, 135, illustrated p. 61
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Notes:
In a letter dated August 27, 1987, Cadmus wrote to Arthur Byron Phillips about his recent purchase of Fences: "It started with a very careful drawing of some battered snow fences on this island near Saltaire where I spent many summers with my friends Jared and margaret French. The pole and figures were invented additions. At the time ... I saw quite a lot of two handsome young friends of friends, not intimtaes of mine. Jonathan Tichenor - an assistant and much more to George Platt Lynes and John Nerber a young poet. I don't remember who actually posed for the figure. Neither of those two. Probably Jared French who was not that elongated. He posed for almost anything I did in those days. As I did too, for him. Once I was a blonde negress! And he a little child. The reclining figure I wanted to be ambiguous: male possibly or female possibly. I left it up to the viewer. I wanted to suggest the strange feeling that sometimes is supposed to occur after love-making - a kind of melancholy(?)..."
