The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 1, 2023

Washing the White Blood from Daniel Boone

1939

Jared French

(American, 1905–1988)

America

Tempera on masonite

71.1 x 77.5 cm (28 x 30 1/2 in.)

Bequest of William Kelly Simpson in memory of his wife Marilyn M. Simpson and her grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 2018.78

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

In 1940, a closeted gay art critic punningly described this painting as a "queer picture."

Description

Washing the White Blood from Daniel Boone relates an episode in the life of the frontiersman: his adoption ritual performed upon his temporary capture by the Shawnee people. One of the first American artists whose same-sex desires were recognized by his contemporaries, French homoeroticized the narrative by substituting men for the women who were thought to have performed the rite.

Citations
Schwartz, Constance, and Franklin Hill Perrell. American Realism Between the Wars: 1919-1941. Exh. Cat. New York: Nassau County Museum of Art, 1994. Mentioned: pp.29,60; Reproduced: p.53
San Francisco (Calif.) Golden Gate International Exposition. Contemporary Art; Official Catalog. Department of Fine Arts, Division of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture. 1939. Mentioned: p.131
1940 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art. Exh. Cat. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1940. Mentioned: p.5 (unpaginated)
McBride, Henry. "At the Whitney Museum: A Show of Native Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings and Prints." The New York Sun, January 13, 1940. Mentioned: p.11
Brenning, Margaret. "The Whitney's Enlarged Annual." The Magazine of Art, Vol.33 (February 1940). Mentioned: p.102
Jewett, Eleanor. "Arts Club Puts Works of Nine Artists on View." Chicago Daily Tribune, February 3, 1942. Mentioned: p.19
Jewett, Eleanor. "Nine American Artists Exhibit in Modern Show." Chicago Sunday Tribune, February 8, 1942. Mentioned: p.3
Edwin Hewitt Gallery. Paintings and Drawings by Jared French. Exh. Cat. New York: Edwin Hewitt Gallery, 1955. Mentioned (unpaginated)
Berman, Greta, and Jeffrey Wechsler. Realism and Realities: The Other Side of American Painting, 1940-1960. Exh. Cat. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1982. Mentioned: pp.21-22,189; Reproduced: p.22
Wechsler, Jeffrey. "Magic Realism: Defining the Indefinite." Art Journal, vol.45, no.4 (Winter 1985). Mentioned and reproduced: p.295
Loftin, Ann Jamison, ed. Museum & Arts Washington Vol.5, No.2 (March/April 1989). Reproduced: p.108
Phelps, Robert, ed. with Jerry Rosco. Continual Lessons: The Journals of Glenway Wescott, 1937-1955. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990. Mentioned: p.60; Reproduced: pp.301-302
Cadmus, French, and Tooker: The Early Years. Exh. Cat. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990. Mentioned: pp.1,2,3,6 (unpaginated)
Wolff, Theodore F. "Artists of the Enigmatic." The Christian Science Monitor, April 13, 1990. Mentioned www.csmonitor.com
Grimes, Nancy. "Paul Cadmus, Jared French, George Tooker." Art in America 89 (September 1990). Mentioned: p.159
Christie's, New York. Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries. November 30, 1990. Lot 209. Reproduced: p.225
French, Jared, and Jeffrey Wechsler. The Rediscovery of Jared French. New York: Midtown Payson Galleries, 1992. Mentioned: p.8 (unpaginated)
Cotter, Holland. "Art in Review." The New York Times, May 22, 1992. Mentioned: p.C22 www.nytimes.com
Grimes, Nancy, and Jared French. Jared French's Myths. San Francisco, Calif: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1993. Mentioned: p.XII; Reproduced: p.23 (unpaginated)
Cole, Mark. "Jared French (1905-1988)." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, 1999. Mentioned: pp.204-213, 379; Reproduced: p.487
Summers, Claude J. The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 2004. Mentioned: p.145
Cheles, Luciano. "A century-old passion: Piero della Francesca in America." In Nella citta di Piero, 5-29. Milton Glaser. Exh. Cat. Sansepolcro, Italy: Casa di Piero della Francesca, in association with Milton Glaser, Inc., 2007. Mentioned: p.18; Reproduced: p.18
Bonhams, New York. American Paintings. November 28, 2007. Lot 123. Reproduced: p.92 (preliminary sketch)
Panzetta, Alfonso, and Jared French. Jared French by Jared French: 600 opere inedite dal fondo italiano dell'artista. Torino: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2010. Mentioned: p.23; Reproduced: pp.248, 322
Ryden, Wendy, and Ian Marshall. Reading, Writing, and the Rhetorics of Whiteness. New York: Routledge, 2012. Mentioned: pp.152-159; Reproduced: p.153
Barnett, Timothy. "Ryden, Wendy, and Ian Marshall. Reading, Writing, and the Rhetorics of Whiteness. New York: Routledge, 2012. 190 pp." Review of Reading, Writing, and the Rhetorics of Whiteness, by Wendy Ryden and Ian Marshall. Composition Forum 27 (Spring 2013). Mentioned compositionforum.com
Schreiber, Michael. One-Man Show: The Life and Art of Bernard Perlin. Berlin: Bruno Gmunder, 2016. Mentioned: p.67
Cheles, Luciano. "Piero della Francesca e l'arte americana." In Piero della Francesca: indagine su un mito, 343-358. Antonio Paolucci. Exh. Cat. Forli: Musei San Domenico, in association with Silvana editoriale, 2016. Mentioned: p.352; Reproduced: p.350
Christies, New York. American Art. November 14-21, 2017. Lot 130. Reproduced: p.30 (study)
Sachar, Emily. "Jared French's State Park: A Contextual Study." MA thesis, Hunter College, The City University of New York, New York, 2017. Mentioned: pp.39,52-53, 55; Reproduced: p.134 academicworks.cuny.edu
Cole, Mark. "Acquisitions 2018: American Painting and Sculpture (Until 1960)." Cleveland Art, Vol.54. Mentioned: p.17; Reproduced: p.17
Cole, Mark. “Acquisitions 2018: American Painting and Sculpture (Until 1960).” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine vol. 59, no. 2 (March/April 2019): 16-17. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 17.
Earnest, Jarrett, Ann Morris Reynolds, Kenneth E. Silver, and Michael Schreiber. The Young and Evil: Queer Modernism in New York, 1930-1955. New York: David Zwirner Books, 2019. Mentioned: p.80
Edgecombe, Rodney. "Jared French's Iconic Enigmas." The Gay and Lesbian Review 11 (July-August 2004). Mentioned: p.15
Exhibition history

Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (January 10-February 18, 1940).

Fine Arts Exhibition. Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, CA (May 25-September 29, 1940).

9 American Artists. Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL (February 3-28, 1942).

Paintings and Drawings by Jared French. Edwin Hewitt Gallery, New York, NY (April 21-May 12, 1955), as The Baptism.

Realism and Realities: The Other Side of American Painting, 1940-1960. Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, NJ (January 17-March 26, 1982); Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL (April 15-June 13, 1982); The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD (September 7-October 18, 1982).

Cadmus, French, and Tooker: The Early Years. Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York, NY (March 1-May 5, 1990).

The Rediscovery of Jared French. Midtown Payson Galleries, New York, NY (April 23-May 29, 1992); Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, MA (October 2-November 29, 1992).

American Realism Between the Wars, 1919-1941. Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY (April 3-June 5, 1994).

The WPA Decade, 1933-1943: Art Across America. Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY (August 15-October 31, 2004).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2018.78