Jared French was a painter who specialised in the ancient medium of egg tempera. He was one of the masters of Magic Realism, part of a circle of friends and colleagues who all painted surreal imagery in egg tempera. Others include George Tooker and Paul Cadmus.
Jared French received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College in 1925. He met and befriended Paul Cadmus in New York City, became his lover and persuaded Cadmus to give up commercial art for 'serious painting'. In 1937 French married Margaret Hoening, another artist. For the next eight years the Cadmuses and Frenches summered on Fire Island and formed a photographic collective called PAJAMA (Paul, Jared, and Margaret). French painted numerous murals for the WPA.
PaJaMa: George Tooker, Jared French and Monroe Wheeler in Provincetown, 1947During the 1930s and 1940s, French was a member of the New York circle that included such gay literary and artistic figures as George Platt Lynes, Lincoln Kirstein, George Tooker, Glenway Westcott and Monroe Wheeler.
Jared French's early paintings are eerie, colorful tableaux of still, silent figures derived from Archaic Greek statues. His later work shows 'a kind of classical biomorphism', strange, colourful, suggestive organic forms.Towards the end of his career his work fell out of favour with critics.
French died in Rome in 1988, where he had lived for 20 years, aged 82.
See more of Jared French's paintings here
Two photos at the top are Jared French by George Platt Lynes in 1938.
