Jared French Biography
Jared Blanford French was born in Ossing, in 1905. He studied art at Amherst College graduating in 1925. Following graduation, he met Paul Cadmus, a lifelong friend and lover. The two artists then specialized at the Art Students League of New York, where French also met Luigi Lucioni, who in 1930 portrayed him in a famous painting entitled Jared French, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1994.
During the 1930s and 1940s, French created murals for the Works Progress Administration, inspired by Greek statuary. Jungian psychology was one of the major influences on his art, which mainly dealt with the dreamlike representation of the collective unconscious. Together with George Tooker and Paul Cadmus, he was one of the greatest exponents of American magical realism.
In 1937, French married the artist Margaret Hoening, fifteen years his senior. Between 1937 and 1945, the three artists, French, Hoening and Cadmus, spent the summer on Fire Island, forming the famous artistic trio PaJaMa, named with the initials of their names. During this period, the three worked mainly in photography, taking and posing for portraits that often had a strong homoerotic connotation.
