A magnificent painter and leading figure in early 20th century American gay culture. Born in New Jersey, French left being a clerk at a Wall Street brokerage firm back in the late 1920s when he met Paul Cadmus, who at the time was a commercial artist. The two became lovers and both began painting (along with friend George Tooker) with egg tempura. At the time, their styles were similar – male bodies in more or less classical forms. But beginning the 1940s, French’s work took on a more symbolic style heavily focused on the unconscious and sexuality – and his work, though forgotten for awhile after the 1960s, still resonates today. (http://artbeforesleep.tumblr.com/post/22425900845/jared-french-1905-1988) An American painter who specialized in the medium of egg tempera. In 1925 he met and befriended Cadmus in New York City. French persuaded Cadmus to give up commercial art for what he deemed, "serious painting". In 1937 French married Margaret Hoening, also an artist. For the next 8 years Cadmus and the Frenches summered on Fire Island and formed a photographic collective called PaJaMa ("Paul, Jared, and Margaret"). French left the USA and died, in seclusion, in Rome, in 1988. .... 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 included George Tooker and Paul Cadmus. French received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College in 1925. He met and befriended Cadmus in New York City, became his lover, and persuaded Cadmus to give up commercial art for "serious painting". 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, colorful, suggestive organic forms. Jungian psychology was probably an important influence upon the dream-like imagery in the paintings of .... (http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3024782.html) undefined

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