Dancing Sailors (1917): Art, History and Details

Dancing Sailors (1917) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Charles Demuth (American, 1883–1935).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This drawing was inspired by Charles Demuth's participation in the nightlife of New York's Greenwich Village during the early 20th century. Around this time, the artist made numerous watercolors of nightclubs, performers, and bathhouses. Demuth created two almost identical compositions (the other is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York), which both show groups of three couples, with two sailors dancing together while others dance with women. Demuth kept these and other homoerotic watercolors private throughout his career, and almost never showed them publicly. The sheet's planes of textured watercolor blur figure and background, presenting a subtle but pointedly erotic scene.

Object facts

• Title: Dancing Sailors
• Date: 1917
• Creator attribution: Charles Demuth (American, 1883–1935)
• Culture: America
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor over graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 20.4 x 25.7 cm (8 1/16 x 10 1/8 in.); Secondary Support: 21.4 x 26.3 cm (8 7/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - American 20th Century
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1980.9

A detail from the museum

This drawing was exhibited only once during the artist's lifetime, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York—notable since he otherwise did not show them publicly.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Paintings by Nineteen Living Artists. Exh. Cat. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1929
• Barr, Jr., Alfred H., ed. Modern Works of Art. Exh. Cat. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1934.
• Farnham, Emily. "Charles Demuth: His Life, Psychology and Works." Ph.D. diss. Ohio State University, 1959.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.