Paul Cadmus - Stone Blossom: A Conversation Piece (1939β1940)
In 1939 and 1940 Cadmus painted Stone Blossom: A Conversation Piece, a portrait of three of his friends from New York: from left to right, Monroe Wheeler, who at the time was director of publications at the Museum of Modern Art; writer Glenway Wescott; and photographer George Platt Lynes. The men had been a romantic threesome for years, and Cadmus shows them enjoying a lazy summer day at Stone Blossom, their country house in New Jersey, a place away from the city where they could relax and live their lives in the openβliterally. In New York, they had to be on guard, as jobs could be lost and reputations and lives ruined if their sexuality and unconventional relationship became public knowledge. (source)
