Cadmus painted his long-time partner, Jared French, as an elongated nude figure standing against a pole on a beach on Fire Island, New York. Storm clouds hover above his head. A lone figure lies in the sand nearby. A winding and wind-beaten fence, echoing the shifting sands of the beach, binds these elements together. Influenced by Surrealism, the scene feels dreamlike, erotic, and melancholic. Critics often referred to Cadmus’s work as “magical realism,” a style that conveyed a fantastical sensibility in its subject material.

Cadmus garnered a lot of controversy throughout his long and storied career. Known for his paintings and drawings of semi-nude or nude male figures in sexually-charged homoerotic scenes, his work often conveyed an element of social critique. Cadmus would often say he just painted what he saw.