id: 170093 accession number: 2012.31 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2012.31 updated: 2023-08-24 00:54:30.644000 Evasion, 1947. Jared French (American, 1905–1988). Tempera on canvas mounted to panel; unframed: 54.5 x 29.2 x 0.7 cm (21 7/16 x 11 1/2 x 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2012.31 title: Evasion title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1947 creation date earliest: 1947 creation date latest: 1947 current location: 226B American Modern creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: --- culture: America, 20th century technique: tempera on canvas mounted to panel department: American Painting and Sculpture collection: American - Painting type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Jared French (American, 1905–1988) - artist --- measurements: Unframed: 54.5 x 29.2 x 0.7 cm (21 7/16 x 11 1/2 x 1/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Inscribed upper left recto: "Jared French" Inscribed verso: "JARED FRENCH / egg yolk tempera / EVASION" translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * "Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 6, 1947-January 25, 1948
"Symbolic Realism in American Painting," Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, July 18-August 18, 1950
"Paintings and Drawings by Jared French," Edwin Hewitt Gallery, New York, April 21-May 12, 1955
"Jared French: Paintings and Drawings," Robert Isaacson Gallery, New York, February 6-24, 1962
"An Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Art," Academy Art Gallery, National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, March 3-April 2, 1967
"Jared French: 25 Years of Paintings and Drawings from 1944 to 1969," Banfer Gallery, New York, February 19-March 8, 1969
"Close Encounters: The Art of Paul Cadmus, Jared French and George Tooker," Midtown Galleries, New York, February 22--April 7, 1990
"The Rediscovery of Jared French," Midtown Payson Galleries, New York, April 21-May 29, 1992; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, MA, October 2-November 29, 1992
"Villa America: American Moderns, 1900-1950," Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, June 4-October 2, 2005; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, December 4, 2005-February 26, 2006; Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, March 15-June 4, 2006; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, September 23-December 31, 2006. --- PROVENANCE Margaret French [1906-1998] (Midtown Payson Galleries, New York, NY, 1988, sold to Myron Kunin, 1991) date: 1988-1991 footnotes: citations: Myron Kunin [1925-2013], Minneapolis, MN date: 1991-2011 footnotes: *
Ownership variously listed under Regis Corporation Collection, Minneapolis; and Curtis Galleries, Minneapolis 
citations: (Alexandre Fine Art, New York, NY, sold to Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) date: 2011 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2012- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: French favored a form of tempera painting in which egg yolk is a primary ingredient. digital description: wall description: French was well regarded during the 1940s and ’50s as one of the most accomplished and fascinating magic realist painters. A still understudied group of artists, the magic realists revived painstaking old master techniques to make convincing their enigmatic images that address a wide range of personal and social concerns. Part of a series of works French made to chronicle the human condition, Evasion symbolizes an individual’s attempt to deny the physical self. As such, the painting manifests tensions regarding sexual mores in mid 20th-century America. While it is reductive to attribute French’s iconographic interest in Evasion solely to his bisexuality, the fact remains that French was one of the first American artists whose same-sex desires were recognized and acknowledged by contemporaries who viewed his work. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting.New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1947. page number: Reproduced: p. 8 url: Kirstein, Lincoln. Symbolic Realism in American Painting, 1940-1950. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1950. page number: Mentioned: p. 8 url: Munroe, Eleanor C. "Jared French." Art News 54 (April 1955) page number: Mentioned: p. 47 url: Lonngren, Lillian. "Jared French." Art News 61 (March 1962) page number: Mentioned: p. 14; Reproduced: p. 14 url: French, Jared "Artists on their Art." Art International 12 (April 20, 1968) page number: Mentioned: p. 54 url: Jared French: 25 Years of Paintings and Drawings from 1944 to 1969. New York: Banfer Gallery, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 1-2 url: Berman, Greta, and Jeffrey Wechsler. Realism and Realities: The Other Side of American Painting, 1940-1960 : [Catalogue of an Exhibition Held at] Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey, January 17-March 26, 1982, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, April 15-June 13, 1982, the Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, September 7-October 18, 1982. [New Brunswick, N.J.]: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1982. page number: Reproduced: p. 96 url: Grimes, Nancy. "Paul Cadmus, Jared French, George Tooker," Art News 89 (September 1990) page number: Reproduced: p. 159 url: French, Jared, and Jeffrey Wechsler. The Rediscovery of Jared French. New York: Midtown Payson Galleries, 1992. page number: Mentioned: p. 8, 14-15; Reproduced: p. 5 url: Grimes,Nancy. "French's Symbolic Figuration," Art in America 80 (November 1992) page number: Mentioned: p. 114; Reproduced: p. 13 url: Grimes, Nancy, and Jared French. Jared French's Myths. San Francisco, Calif: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1993. page number: Reproduced: pl. 21 url: Lucie-Smith, Edward. American Realism. New York: Abrams, 1994. page number: Mentioned: p. 150-151; Reproduced: p. 150 url: Cole, Mark."Jared French (1905-1988)," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, 1999. page number: Mentioned: 215, 269-270, 395; Reproduced: p. 513 url: Ōe, Kenzaburō. Le jeu du siècle. Paris: Gallimard, 2000, illus. cover (detail). page number: Cover detail url: Leddick, David. Intimate Companions: A Triography of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein, and Their Circle. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. page number: Mentioned: p. 223 url: Edgecombe, Rodney. "Jared French's Iconic Enigmas," The Gay and Lesbian Review 11, July-August 2004. page number: Mentioned: p. 18 url: Armstrong, Elizabeth, and William C. Agee. Villa America: American Moderns, 1900-1950. Newport Beach, Calif: Orange County Museum of Art, 2005. page number: Mentioned: p. 29-30, 128; Reproduced: p. 30, 128 url: Panzetta, Alfonso. Jared French by Jared French: 600 Opere indetite dal fondo italiano dell'artista. Turin, Italy: Allemandi, 2010. page number: Mentioned: p. 25, 32-33, 134, 328, 350, 365; Reproduced: 134, 328 url: Litt, Steven. "Museum's East Wing Quietly Reopens, Revealing Impressive Changes," Plain Dealer, August 18, 2012. page number: Mentioned: p. E3 url: Grant, Daniel. "Museums by the Numbers: 2012 in Review," Antiques and Fine Art 12 (Winter / Spring 2013) page number: Mentioned: p. 153 url: Cole, Mark. "Acquistions 2012," Cleveland Art 53 (March / April 2013). page number: Mentioned: p. 22 url: Artistic Excellence: Acquisitions 2012-14. Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. page number: Mentioned: p. 10, 49 url: Schreiber, Michael.One-Man Show: The Life and Art of Bernard Perlin. Berlin, Germany: Bruno Gmuender, 2016. page number: Mentioned: p. 67 url: Miller, Angela. "Sinners all: the queer world of Paul Cadmus's seven deadly sins." American Art 36, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 111-136. page number: reproduced p.129; mentioned p.128-129 url: --- IMAGES