Paul Cadmus & Jared French, Fire Island, PaJaMa (1940)
I have previously written about The PaJaMa collective’s Fire Island summers. They were frequently joined by fellow artists George Platt Lynes and Bernard Perlin, as well as a parade of friends and lovers, performers and literary types from their New York social scene. They were almost exclusively attractive young gay men who served as models and muses for the artists.
Chuck Howard & Ted Starkowski, FI, PaJaMa, 1951
10 of these men are profiled in the piece – several of whom have previously been featured here. The others will inevitably get more in-depth profiles in the future: José “Pete” Martinez Forrest Thayer Donald Windham & Sandy Campbell Jonathan Tichenor Randy Jack Ted Starkowski Chuck Howard Jensen Yow & Jack Fontan
Paul Cadmus: Two Boys On The Beach (1938) / Two Boys On The Beach 2 (1939)
Margaret French, “The Moon by Day”, 1939
Thanks to Robert Bonanno for reaching out and John Dempsey for the feedback and formatting!
Back in 2018, I posted two collections of artist/photographer Don Herron’s Tub Shots, a series of images featuring the famous and near-famous posing in their bathtubs. This coincided with an exhibition of 65 photographs at the Daniel Cooney Gallery here in NYC. The blog posts (Pt. 1 and Pt. II) still garner a considerable amount of traffic, as well as a third collection posted 2 years ago. Now we have a fourth selection of the collection: a Christopher Street magazine feature from April, 1980 and recollections from the subjects.
The April, 1980 issue of Christopher Street, with football player David Kopay sharing the cover with a very nice Tom of Finland illustration.
Among those featured in the Christopher Street layout was artist Mel Odom, who shared memories of the experience in Pt.1.
Ronald Chase is a San Francisco-based artist, photographer, educator, independent filmmaker and opera designer.
Demetrie Kabbaz (1944-2014) was a painter known for his highly stylized portraits of Marilyn Monroe and other iconics of pop culture.
The article mentions a 1981 exhibit at Jehu gallery in San Francisco. The tub shot of gallery owner Ron Jehu (1937-2007) is also included alongside actress Mink Stole and popular San Francisco DJ Sheila Rene (1939-1998).
Writer Felice Picano: “Don came to my duplex at 317 E 11th Street, now owned by Annie Leibovitz and he was a sweet man, so he climbed onto the back of the bathtub where he was cramped but also supported by two walls and he shot a bunch of photos.
“He then asked if I could recommend others to shoot, and I sent him to either George Stavrinos or to Victor Hugo (Halston’s lover). By the time Don was done, he had gotten a pretty full and accurate portrait of Bohemia In New York City in the period. And, as I wrote in my book Art & Sex in Greenwich Village, Don captured what was probably the last unified downtown NYC bohemian community.”
Peter Hujar (1934-1987) was a photographer primarily known for his portraiture. His photo is featured on the same page as fellow photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989). Annie Leibovitz would later recall, “Peter and I shared a distaste for Robert. One of the reasons is that Peter thought Robert was silly, you know, which he was. And he thought that Robert copied him in certain ways, which of course he did.”
Belle de Jour was New York’s most notorious dominatrix in the 1970’s and 1980’s. She ran a successful commercial dungeon and a weekly S&M theatre in her midtown loft. Submissive men, suburban couples, and thrill seekers were known to fill the bleachers to watch Belle and her entourage perform.
Don Herron‘s own Tubshot can be seen in this ad for a 1982 gallery showing:
Sur Rodney Surrecounts his tub shot: “We used the bathroom of Cynthia Chiarulli’s loft for the photo shoot, which was styled by Suzan Silver, a jewelry maker who made her wares from mirrored plastics she purchased on Canal Street. She provided the lipstick and sprayed the sides of my hair silver.
“I used the photo for the cover of my first book of poems… I organized an exhibition of Donald’s prints at the Tribeca club Stilwende and also showcased Suzan’s jewelry. I also screened a new version of my TV talk show – the All New Sur Rodney Sur Show. Sometime after the event I produced a version of my talk show where I interviewed Holly Woodlawn in a bubble bath for a photo shoot with Donald in a television studio in Chelsea.”
Valery Oisteanu: “I remember being introduced to Don by Timothy Greenfield and Don was part of the East Village Arts scene. He was very friendly. I was writing a monthly column at that time in Cover Arts magazine called ‘The Wall Patrol’ about art galleries…. Don took a photo of me naked wearing a Mylar face mask and there are also butt plugs as a humorous prop.”
Colette Justine (aka Colette Lumiere) is a multi-media artist who is considered a pioneering street performance artist and “photographic tableau vivant.” She is also known for playing with male/female gender roles through different guises and personas.
Käthe Kruse, performer/artist: “I was staying with John Heys when he was photographed by Don. When we met in John’s apartment and he saw my hair, he asked to photograph me too. So after the shoot with John, I got off my clothes and laid down in the bathtub and he arranged my hair. Then he climbed up to the edges of the bathtub and started to photograph. He told me that he always takes the same number of photos (eighteen) and then he stopped. I love these kind of concepts. When I was back in Berlin I received one print and after all these years it is still hanging in my home. I love the photo and I am very happy and thankful to have been photographed by Don.”
Photographer/visual artist Christopher Makos (1980)
Stanton Weiss (1952-2022): “New York in the 1970’s was an unparalleled place. There was an edge to it and a feeling that anything could happen. I had a seemingly conservative job working for Dick Ridge, the renowned interior designer. The phone rang. ‘Stanton darling, it’s Pat. Don Herron wants to photograph me and I need to use Dick’s tub! My bathroom is being painted.’ Pat was Pat Loud, America’s first reality star of PBS’ An American Family. She is a stunning woman, and unlike other reality stars, she is the epitome of grace and style. She posed with calla lilies and then Don asked me if I would like to be photographed as well.”
Pat Loud (1926-2021): “I recall Don calling me to say he was doing a series of photographs of people in their bathtubs and would I pose for him. I told him I didn’t do bathtubs but he assured me that nudity was not his objective and I could use all the bubble bath I wanted…. I don’t know whose idea the calla lilies were that seem so dominant and strategically placed and yet so out of place for such a photo.”
Dick Ridge (1928-2021): “I received a phone call from Pat Loud, who asked me if I would pose along with other people of the moment for a picture in my bathtub. Having just returned from Southampton, I had a pretty good tan and decided ‘Why not?'”
Poet Michael Ratcliff, Performer/Fashion designer Katy K (Kattelman), Legendary nightlife performer Joey Arias.
Marcus Leatherdale (1952-2022) was a Canadian portrait photographer who was personally and professionally associated with Robert Mapplethorpe.
Michael Musto: “Don contacted me with the idea of photographing me in my bathtub. I thought that was a novel idea, especially since I usually took showers, not baths. He wanted the photo to express my eccentric side, so I wore the shower cap, shades and white lipstick. I found Don to be likeably quirky and creative. This was a time of horror because of the mounting epidemic, but it was also a time when LGBT culture, nightlife, and solidarity were on the rise. I used my Village Voice column as a venue for both anger and humor at the same time, while also expressing myself via fashion and nightlife antics. Don’s photo captured my multiple moods.”
It’s that time again… due to popular demand, we have a 7th installment of WWII-era photos featuring the jockstrap-clad pre-flight training school cadets at St. Mary’s College in California. You can view the first one here, with links to all the rest at the bottom of the article. This is the third installment focusing on these strapping young men – many away from home for the first time – photographed as they trained to go to war during the holiday season.
I first became aware of these black and white 5″x7″ triptych photos several years ago. Listings turn up on auction sites frequently, where the photos are often accompanied by the index card used to record the physical training progress of the cadet.
The earliest photos (from June 13, 1942) feature the men completely nude, but all subsequent photos feature the cadets in jockstraps, standing behind some sort of grid fencing to better detect posture misalignment and spinal curvature.
There is still some confusion between these photos and the Yale / Ivy League posture pics, since the Navy photos were sometimes used to illustrate stories about the Yale pics. Note that all of these images contain a visible U.S. Navy / St. Mary’s Pre-Flight School placard, even if they have been cropped out in some posts. Similarly the Yale University photos are identified as such within the frame of the photos:
Fortunately for us, multiple photos of some cadets have surfaced, allowing for comparisons of their training progress:
Comparison photos 11/2-12/1/42
And while there is a lack of ethnic diversity, there are a variety of body types.
Comparison photos: 10/24 – 12/22/44
My collection now includes over 800 jpegs of different cadets. While some of these men did perish during WWII, the largest majority that I have researched lived to ripe old ages.
Comparison photos: 12/8/43-2/2/44
Any surviving cadets would now be close to 100 years old. I recently discovered one who passed away last year at the age of 103.
Comparison photos: 11/2-12/22/42
One thing these young men have in common, as they were documented in timeless photos of their physical prime: they were far from home during the holidays, training to fight for their country.
At this time of year, 80 years later, we again salute The Greatest Generation for their fine forms and dedication.
Kenn Duncan is widely considered to be one of the foremost dance photographers of the late 20th Century. In addition to his work as principal photographer for After Dark and Dance Magazine, his photos also appeared in Vogue, Time, Life, Newsweek and Harper’s Bazaar. From the mid-1960’s through the early 1980’s, he photographed nearly every major dance company in the world as well as many Broadway shows.
Born in New Jersey on September 22, 1928, Duncan began his career as a figure skater and then segued into dance. His career took another turn when he was sidelined with a broken foot and signed up for a six-week photography course at the local YMCA. Naturally he gravitated back to the dance world for photographic inspiration.
In addition to his dance photography, Duncan was well regarded for his nude photographs, with an emphasis on male subjects. His first two books, Nudes (1970) and More Nudes (1971) were favorably received for his “discreet and artistic arrangements of his subjects.”
Christopher Walken (1968)
After Dark was an edgy entertainment and culture-based magazine that sprang from the waning Ballroom Dance Magazine in 1968. In The Rise And Fall Of Gay Culture, Daniel Harris writes; “One of the strangest reincarnations in journalistic history… it was out of the ashes of a periodical devoted to such topics as waltzes, rumbas, and turkey trots that After Dark, an audacious mass-market experiment in gay eroticism, arose like a phoenix in all of its subversive splendor.”
Although After Dark was not officially a gay magazine, the publishers were certainly willing to cater to that audience, pushing the envelope on male nudity to a degree that is still not seen in mainstream US publications 50 years later.
Duncan photographed Bette Midler numerous times through the years, including three After Dark cover photos and the cover shot for her 1976 Live At Last LP.
After Dark shuttered in early 1983. The following year, Duncan published The Red Shoes, a photo book featuring celebrities wearing red shoes in a nod to both the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale as well as the ruby slippers of The Wizard of Oz. Among those featured were many familiar subjects of his earlier work, including (pictured below) Brad Davis, Bette Midler, Maxwell Caulfield, Eartha Kitt, Dick Cavett, Mikhail Baryshnikov, John Curry, Richard Thomas, Gregory Hines, and Treat Williams.
Duncan began work on a second Red Shoes book, but it remained unfinished, along with several other projects. He was just 57 years old when he died of AIDS complications at New York Hospital on July 27, 1986. In 2003, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts acquired 600,000 photos from Kenn Duncan’s estate. Many of these photos have been digitized and are now available for viewing online for free.
September 11th and the onset of Fall always makes me think back on the New York City that I photographed as a teenager in the 1980’s.
The intrepid photographer (1985)
My photography class would take field trips into Manhattan each semester. Later I began hopping on the Long Island Rail Road to venture in by myself. I loved photographing the city. There was – and is – an infinite number of things to focus your camera on. I learned early on that as much as I loved taking pictures in the city, I did not enjoy photographing the people. I was afraid someone would freak out and demand money or break my camera. My photos with live subjects tended to be dark and blurry or out of focus because I just wanted to snap the photo and run.
Instead, I focused on other elements of the city – a cat in a window, a gargoyle on a building. The purple shoeprints that appeared all around the village in the mid 1980’s. I would go into the city on a Sunday and walk south from Penn Station to the World Trade Center and back, snapping pictures the whole time.
To this day, I will spot a familiar building detail or doorway and remember… oh yeah! I took a picture of that in 1986. After 9/11, I would scan through the footage from that day, searching for familiar places on the plaza and in the vicinity, looking for details so familiar to me in the photos I had taken years ago.
The Statue of Liberty gets a facelift (1984)
Canal Street Station (1986)
Chinatown (1984):
South Street Seaport (1984):
TriBeCa (1986): Donovan’s Publik House was at 108 Greenwich Street. It is now Suspenders restaurant. 67 Greenwich Street housed The Whitehall Hardware Store when this photo was taken. In 2021, the New York Times profiled this structure in an article titled The Indestructible Townhouse. El Internacional, formerly El Teddy’s was a popular hangout at 219 West Broadway. The Guest Of A Guest website described it as “The epitome of downtown cool.”
World Trade Center from above and below (1985-86):
During vacations from the 1930’s through the mid-1950’s, artists Paul Cadmus, Jared French and his wife Margaret Hoening French photographed each other on the beaches of New York’s Fire Island as well as Nantucket and Cape Cod, Massachusettes.
Usually nude or donning simple costumes, the artists also used found objects as props to create stark, surreal and/or erotic images. They passed Margaret’s Leica camera around, taking turns as subject and auteur. This collaborative authorship was reflected in the umbrella name they chose for this work, utilizing the first two letters of their first names: PaJaMa.
Paul Cadmus on Cape Cod (1928)
Years later Cadmus explained, “After we’d been working most of the day, we’d go out late afternoons and take photographs when the light was best. They were just playthings. We would hand out these little photographs when we went to dinner parties, like playing cards.”
The dynamic amongst the trio was complicated: Jared French and Paul Cadmus were lovers – a relationship that continued during his marriage to Margaret. All three lived and worked in a townhouse at 5 St. Lukes Place in Greenwich Village.
The PaJaMa collective expanded in 1945 with the inclusion of Cadmus’ boyfriend, George Tooker, an artist 16 years his junior. Cadmus would later explain “I had Jerry (Jared) in the daytime and George at night.” Although his name was not added to the PaJaMa moniker, Tooker was an active participant in the collective from 1944-49.
George Tooker with Paul Cadmus in Nantucket and Provincetown PaJaMa photos, (1946-48)
A 2015 New York Times review of a PaJaMa exhibition noted that their photos “breathed eroticism.” While some of the hundreds of photos are masterpieces of magical realism, others appear to be figure studies for their painting.
As when they vacationed on Fire Island, the collective were joined on Cape Cod by various friends and lovers, fellow artists and writers that were part of their New York social circle.
Dancer/choreographer Todd Bolenderwas the subject of a series of PaJaMa photos taken in Provincetown (1947)
Museum curator/publisher Monroe Wheeler is seen in 1947 Provincetown photos with French, Tooker & Cadmus. His lifelong partner Glenway Wescott was more prominent in the Fire Island PaJaMa photos of the early 1940’s.
Writer Christopher Isherwood with his then-boyfriend, photographer Bill Caskey, Provincetown (1947)
Photographer George Platt Lynes (left, wi/ Monroe Wheeler) joined them on Fire Island and later in Provincetown with his own camera.
PaJaMa photos are part of this tribute to playwright Tennessee Williams, displayed at Provincetown’s Atlantic House, one of the oldest gay bars in the U.S.
Provincetown, 1947 (l-r): George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler, Paul Cadmus and George Tooker
George Tooker, Sleepers I (1951)
On Cape Cod, the collective occasionally experimented with color film, which gave their work a different texture.
The quartet toured Europe in 1949 and by the end of the trip, Tooker had split from Cadmus. He later said “I was looking for a relationship and my relationship with Paul always included Jared and Margaret French.” Tooker would soon find a partner in painter Bill Christopher, with whom he remained until Christopher’s death in 1973.
Back to a trio, the PaJaMa collective would return to Fire Island for their summer getaways in 1950.
PaJaMa, Provincetown (1948)
Paul Cadmus & Margaret French, Jenny Lind Tower, North Truro (1947)
PaJaMa, Women & Boys (ca 1940s)
As with George Platt Lynes’ male nude photographs, the PaJaMa photographs did not receive much notice or recognition until the 1990’s. They are now frequently exhibited in galleries and selections are a part of the MOMA collection.
Up until recent years, the fabled Ivy League nude posture photos have been written about but seldom seen. Starting in the mid-1930’s and continuing on until the 1970’s, incoming Ivy League University students were photographed fully nude in order to gauge their posture, detect scoliosis, and address other correctable body issues while simultaneously inflicting emotional scarring on the participants. Talk show host Dick Cavett joked about it in his early stand-up routines:
“Some guys hated it… some seemed to enjoy it. One guy tried to go through twice… one guy fainted… one guy tried to buy his pictures… and one guy tried to get his retouched.”
50 years later, he penned a New York Times Op Ed piece with a much darker view of the experience.
In recent years, the posture photos from Yale have garnered the most press, with tongues wagging at the possibilities of seeing our country’s best and brightest in the buff. The pics were so rare that most articles on the subject did not actually feature any of the images, opting instead to use medical textbook illustrations or military posture photos.
Since 2020, a steady stream of posture photos featuring male freshman Yalies from 1937-1960 have sold on eBay. It was really only a matter of time before some familiar faces began to pop up. I posted about writer Calvin Trillin‘s photo, which went for a little over $100, while the pic of late actor James Franciscus pulled in $1,225.
These pics now regularly sell for close to $1,000 each. Earlier this month, actor Bill Hinnant’s photo went for a whopping $1,600.
Chalk one up to eBay for their ever-changing goalposts of propriety. When James Franciscus’ Yale photo went up for auction in 2021, full nudity was prohibited in auction photos. What we were left with was a modesty strip applied by the seller to prevent us from viewing the full Franciscus. Now eBay requires that auctions selling nude photos actually show the goods – to insure that the subject isn’t too…erm… excited to be there. Dean Martin’s dong was covered with a post-it, but now it’s ok to see Bill’s Hinnant:
Hinnant was still known by his birth name of John F. Hinnant, Jr. when he arrived at Yale in the Fall of 1953. Originally from Chincoteague Island, Virginia, he had spent two summers as an apprentice at Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine. He made his professional debut there playing Barbara Cook’s son in Carousel. He also appeared in Life With Mother starring the legendary Billie (Glinda the Good Witch) Burke.
Following his sophomore year, Bill departed Yale when he won the role of Lt. Cover in the original cast of the comedy No Time For Sergeants starring Andy Griffith. After a year and a half on Broadway, Hinnant returned to Yale to complete his degree alongside his younger brother, Skip, who was also an actor.
In 1957, Bill Hinnant co-starred with former Yale classmate James Franciscus in the noir film Four Boys And A Gun:
Standing just 5’2″, his stature was usually noted in press articles. “Pintsized blond Hinnant has a full-sized talent!” crowed a 1965 Variety review.
Most of his notices were similar to Variety’s take on the 1963 off-Broadway musical Put It In Writing: “Far from memorable but featuring good work by Bill Hinnant.” This was a theme throughout his career, as he received favorable reviews in forgotten musicals that would close on the road (Maltby & Shire’s Love Match), on opening night (The American Hamburger League, Frank Merriwell), or after a handful of performances (All Kinds Of Giants, God Bless Coney). He guested on television shows ranging from Route 66 and Naked City to sitcoms like Pete & Gladys and Karen Valentine’s self-titled show.
He found his defining role in 1967 when he was cast as Snoopy in the original production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. The cast included Gary “Radar” Burghoff in the title role, Bob Balaban as Linus and his younger brother Skip Hinnant playing Schroeder. Bill’s scene-stealing Snoopy is still considered to be the definitive interpretation of the role. His performance on the original cast recording is a blueprint for anyone tackling the part. He was awarded a Drama Desk Award for his performance later that year.
In 1969, Hinnant appeared in the film A Nice Girl Like Me with Barbara Ferris:
After a successful run with Charlie Brown, he was still plagued with subpar material- a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by critics:
Even when the material was up to snuff, there were other issues to contend with:
Hinnant reprised his role as Snoopy in a 1973 television adaption of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. This cast featured Wendell Burton as Charlie Brown and My Three Sons actor Barry Livingston as Linus.
Unfortunately The Bill Hinnant Story does not have a happy ending. On February 17th, 1978, Hinnant drowned while vacationing in the Dominican Republic. He was just 42 years old. The Record noted that “the beige-haired, digest-sized and personable bachelor” was very active in charities for underprivileged children and had adopted several worldwide through the Foster Parents Plan.
June, 2022 marked 80 years since the start of the U.S. Navy pre-flight training program that took place at St. Mary’s College. Images of naked or jockstrap-clad cadets were taken during training at the school in Moraga, California when it was requisitioned for the war effort from 1942-1946. You can see more of these photos in our previous posts:
Unfortunately, there is still some confusion when these pictures surface, as they are sometimes miscredited as Ivy League posture photos. For comparison, here are two of the different Yale posture photos:
The single profile pose was used from the late 1930’s until 1952. It was then replaced with a mirror/ triptych setup, which has “Yale” visible in the background.
Prior to World War II, there were other physical fitness photos taken at the army base in Ft. Sheridan, Illinois. These fully nude pics do not pop up on the internet as often as those from St. Mary’s Pre-flight school. As shown above, both sets of photos contain the location identified within the photo.
The St. Mary’s photos were taken to measure the fitness progression of each recruit as they underwent extreme physical training. Each picture was accompanied by an index card containing body measurements and physical achievement statistics over the course of several months.
This allows for some contrasting images that would be the envy of many fitness plans.
Comparative photos: March 1 – May 5, 1943
Only the earliest St. Mary’s photos – dated June 13, 1942 – feature the men completely nude. All subsequent photos feature the cadets in jockstraps. In all of the photos, the men stand behind some sort of grid fencing to better illustrate misalignment and spinal curvature.
My collection of photos gathered from around the internet now includes over 750 different cadets. The youngest identified died at age 20 and the oldest lived to 103 years old.
Whether the individual photos of these handsome young men capture them at the beginning of their lives or tragically close to the end, all of the subjects are timelessly captured in prime physical condition as they trained to serve their country. 80 years later, we salute and admire their fine forms and dedication.
Navy Memorial Bench plaque from the St. Mary’s campus.
In last summer’s post about the PaJaMa Collective – artists Paul Cadmus, Jared French and his wife Margaret – the focus was on their Fire Island photos of the late 1930’s. One of the friends who cavorted with the trio during that time was José “Pete” Martinez, a dancer from New York City who was involved with their friend, arts patron and ballet impresario Lincoln Kirstein.
Paul Cadmus’s 1937 sketch of José Martinez appears in Charles Kaiser’s book The Gay Metropolis.
In David Leddick’s book Intimate Companions, Martinez is described as “a droll and witty young man… Those who knew the two men in the 1930’s said he was capable of endlessly amusing his lover, and that of all the men in his life, Martinez was the man that Kirstein most likely loved the most. Kirstein loved gossip and other men’s tales of their sexual exploits, and this love of storytelling drew him to Martinez. In addition, Martinez was handsome, and many artists painted, drew and photographed him. “
Fire Island PaJaMa photos featuring José Martinez with Paul Cadmus, Jared and Margaret French, ca 1938-39
Besides The PaJaMa Collective, those artists included Paul Cadmus’ sister Fidelma and photographers William Caskey and George Platt Lynes.
The most memorable Lynes photo of Martinez is a studio shot with the dancer perched in a window frame wearing nothing but a wide brimmed sun hat.
George Platt Lynes photographs of José Martinez.
Pete Martinez (who sometimes used the stage name Pete Stefan) was born José Antonio Martinez-Berlanga in Mexico on March 13, 1913. His family moved to Houston, Texas when he was quite young. Mama Martinez had been a folk dancer back in Mexico and one of Jose’s sisters dreamed of following in her footsteps. Little José was drafted as her dance partner. The scenario is familiar to many boys who begin to study dance as children: the sister loses interest and drops out, but he continues on. It’s a page torn out of A Chorus Line. Later an uncle took him to see Ballet Russe, which further strengthened his resolve to dance. “I was going to set the world on fire,” he would later recount.
After graduating high school, much to the chagrin of his parents, José moved to New York City to study at the School of American Ballet, where he eventually gained a full scholarship. Upon graduation, he was invited to join the company.
Martinez caught the eye of Lincoln Kirstein, and the relationship progressed to the point that they moved in together.
The PaJaMa photo “After The Hurricane” features (l-r) Jared French, Lincoln Kirstein, José Martinez, Forrest Thayer and probably Paul Cadmus. Tragically, costume designer Forrest Thayer was killed in a Southampton single car accident in 1951.
Martinez became a member of The Ballet Caravan, a touring company founded by Kirstein to provide off-season summer employment to American ballet dancers. Here Martinez began to get more involved in the creative process: conceiving the ideas and librettos for ballets, if not choreographing them. He is most associated with the ballet Pastorela, although his exact contribution to its creation varies depending on the source.
As noted in the New York Times article below, Martinez also had several engagements at Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room with different dance partners.
New York Times, 12/1/40
José Martinez photographed by William Caskey
Lincoln Kirstein & his wife Fidelma Cadmus
Martinez eventually found himself in a triangular romantic situation similar to his friends in The PaJaMa Collective: Paul Cadmus and Jared French had a sexual relationship that continued after French married Margaret Hoening. The three all lived and worked together in a Greenwich Village townhouse at 5 St. Luke’s Place. When Lincoln Kirstein married Paul’s sister Fidelma, she moved into the apartment he shared with Martinez, who continued to live with them for the first year of the marriage.
Martinez was also photographed in the summer of 1938 sunbathing with Jared French and Paul Cadmus on the roof of their home/studios at 5 St. Luke’s Place.
The Ballet Caravan were on a South American tour through 1941 as the U.S. entered World War II. The troupe returned to a very different New York City than the one they had left. When Martinez was denied entry to the Army, he went to work at a hostel for Jewish refugees in Haverford, Pennsylvania where writer Christopher Isherwood was already working. The two were acquaintances through Kirstein but developed a close friendship that would sometimes turn physical, as detailed in Isherwood’s diaries.
For My Brother: A True Story By José Martinez As Told To Lincoln Kirstein original jacket designed by William Chappell.
Paul Cadmus photographed sketching José Martinez at 5 St. Luke’s Place.
In 1943, a book was published in the UK with the rather unwieldy title For My Brother: A True Story By José Martinez As Told To Lincoln Kirstein.
From the original dust jacket: “It is the life story of a young American of Mexican origin whose family has settled in a small town in Texas. It is at the same time a study in the contrast between two worlds, two ways of life: industrial, polyglot America, and the more primitive civilization of Mexico just over the border, where many of the hero’s relations still live. The story is told with great poetic feeling and a rare delicacy of perception in human relationships…”
The chronology on Kirstein’s website makes no mention of Martinez and lists For My Brother as fiction “based on a Mexican sojourn.”
The book jacket was designed by fellow dancer-turned-ballet designer William Chappell. For My Brother… is quite rare, as most of the 2,000 printed copies were said to have been destroyed in a warehouse bombed by the Nazis. A Canadian edition was later published by MacMillan.
Martinez was finally able to join the military in 1943 and remained in service until the end of the war.
Back in New York, he resumed his dance career with Ballet Society where he danced in the original 1946 productions of George Balanchine’s Four Temperaments and William Dollar’s Highland Fling.
And then…. to invoke A Chorus Line once again: “What do you do when you can no longer dance?”
A knee injury hastened the end of his performance career. A June 4, 1950 article in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot chronicled his coming to terms with the transition. He drifted for a year before settling into the next chapter of his life as a dance teacher in Norfolk, Virginia.
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 7/27/47
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 6/12/49
After Virginia, Martinez founded other dance studios in Ohio and California, where he retired from teaching in the mid-1960’s.
Lincoln Kirstein died at aged 88 in January, 1996. José Martinez passed away 16 months later in Pasadena, California at age 84.
One of my goals in creating posts about artist’s models like Chuck Howard, Randy Jack, and Ted Starkowski is to clear up misinformation posted online by galleries and auction houses. Whether the inaccuracies are intentionally deceptive or the result of laziness, the errors spread across the internet, with subjects misidentified and photo dates sometimes off by decades.
A series of 30+ nude model study photos are have recently been listed for auctions as “Jared French Nude Study of Tennessee Williams” or “Studio di nudo Tennessee Williams.” One set of two 8×10 photos sold for over $650. These should have been credited to the PaJaMa collective, which Jared French was a part of, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the lean muscularly defined model is certainly not writer Tennessee Williams.
Tennessee Williams was the subject of several PaJaMa photos in Provincetown and at Jared French’s New York City studio at 5 St. Luke’s Place. In one of these photos, Williams strikes the same pose in the same place as our mystery model.
Tennessee WilliamsNot Tennessee Williams
So who was the thin young chap with the low-hangers?
Martha Graham levitating John Butler
In another corner of the internet, I found two of these photos in a PaJaMa exhibit, dated 1943 and identifying the subject as dancer/choreographer John Butler (1918-1993). In the early 1940’s, he earned money working as an art model while studying dance with both Martha Graham and George Balanchine.
Besides the PaJaMa photos above, he was also photographed by George Platt Lynes:
AP article (1955)
Butler danced on Broadway as Dream Curly in the original production of Oklahoma! He appeared in a string of Broadway musicals throughout the 1940’s including Hollywood Pinafore, Inside U.S.A. and On The Town, where he dated cast mate Cris Alexander.
He began to transition into choreography in the late 1940’s. The combined influences of Balanchine and Graham gave his work unique elements of classical ballet as well as modern dance. He was one of the first to create works specifically for television, which was still considered a new and inferior medium. He choreographed variety show segments (The Ed Sullivan Show, The Kate Smith Show) as well as for Omnibus and full-length ballets and operas. His 1951 staging of Amahl and the Night Visitors was recreated annually for the following nine NBC holiday specials.
Butler performs as one of the Three Dancers in this 1955 broadcast.
Life Magazine profiled Butler in the April 25, 1955 issue:
Richard Avedon photo of John Butler & Barbara Muller (1954)John Butler photographed by Roloff Beny (1959)
In addition to his work choreographing for Broadway and television, Butler founded The John Butler Dance Company in 1955. It was later renamed American Dance Theater and toured Europe until it disbanded in 1961.
John Butler & Carmen de Lavallade rehearse Portrait of Billie, his dance meditation on Billie Holliday (ca 1960)
John Butler & Melvin Dwork (1963)
His most celebrated work was the staging of Carmina Burana (1959) for New York City Opera, which has been revived with over 30 companies.
In 1961 he met celebrated interior designer Melvin Dwork, who has called Butler “the love of my life.” They remained companions and friends until Butler’s death in 1993. Dwork was instrumental in preserving Butler’s dance legacy.
As he matured, Butler’s voluminous eyebrows became something of a trademark of his appearance. He appears to have embraced this with a level of zeal that surely inspired George Whipple.
Over the next several decades, Butler continued to choreograph throughout the U.S. and around the world. The Hague, Munich, Sydney, Spoleto, Montreal, and Warsaw were part of his regular rotation with occasional work in Italy and South America. Back in New York City he choreographed Medea, the first dance for Mikhail Baryshnikov after his defection to the West.
John Butler photographed in April of 1993. He died of lung cancer later that year at the age of 74.
In 1993, author Camille Hardy interviewed John Butler for Dance Magazine shortly before his death. As they sat in his Upper East Side apartment, surrounded by his artwork collection and the walls lined with the works of Warhol, Avedon and Lynes, he said “I’ve done everything in my life I ever wanted to do.”
Brian Ferrari's Blog 
