Neal Baer Collection

PaJaMa was a moniker for an artist collective formed by the combination of the first two letters of the names of artists Paul Cadmus and married artists Jared French and Margaret French. Working in photography, PaJaMa made portraits of their friends, most of whom were young, beautiful and gay and moved in New York’s art, dance or literary circles in the 1930s and 40s. Cadmus and French were openly lovers within the trio. As PaJaMa, the trio staged and photographed evocative nude and seminude figurative tableaus that appear frozen in time, often with landscape of Fire Island as their setting. 

Provenance
Swann Auction Galleries, Sale 2583 Fine Photographs, October 21, 2021, Lot 215

Other works by PaJaMa
PaJaMa, G.T. [George Tooker], P.C. [Paul Cadmus], J.F. [Jared French] by M.F. [Margaret French] Wauwinet (c. 1948-49)

See also
Paul Cadmus, Study of a Male Model Carrying a Box on his Shoulder (c. 1930s)

Pavel Tchelitchew, Untitled (1929)

Roberta Smith, “PaJaMa, Whose Photographs Breathed Eroticism,” The New York Times, November 16, 2015

PaJaMa in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art

PaJaMa in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lot 48, Set of 10 Photographs by PaJaMa, Sotheby’s New York, 27 June 2019

“Transmissions,” organized by Nick Mauss, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 6 March – 14 May 2018

“Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 17 March – 15 June 2019

“The Young and Evil,” David Zwirner, New York, 21 February – 13 April, 2019