Glenway Wescott

Painters Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Margaret Hoening French formed the photography collective PaJaMa—a moniker composed of the first two letters of each of their first names. The trio spent their summers on beaches along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, photographing scenes of themselves and their friends, who were members of New York’s artistic and LGBTQ communities. In the late 1930s, the PaJaMa artists joined the creative circle of acclaimed author Glenway Wescott and his longtime companion Monroe Wheeler. In this photograph, Wescott stands nude with his back to the viewer in a shallow body of water surrounded by forest. His nudity and contrapposto pose recall classical artistic conventions while simultaneously evoking the carefree nature of PaJaMa’s work.