Detail of Sloth by Paul Cadmus in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2019

The Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth
1947

Object Details

Title: The Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth

Artist: Paul Cadmus (American, New York 1904–1999 Weston, Connecticut)

Date: 1947

Medium: Egg tempera on Masonite

Dimensions: 23 3/4 × 11 1/2 in. (60.3 × 29.2 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1993

Accession Number: 1993.87.3

Between 1945 and 1949, Cadmus turned his dexterous hand and fertile imagination to rendering the Seven Deadly Sins, a subject with biblical antecedents that artists have explored since the Middle Ages, including Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Cadmus’s interpretation extends his predilection for social satire to surreal extremes of excess, vulgarity, and gore. Of the series, Cadmus explained, "I don’t appear as myself, but I am all of the Deadly Sins in a way, as you all are, too."

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/486324