Cadmus, Paul, 1904-99, American painter, b. N.Y.C.; studied National Academy of Design (1919-26), Art Students' League (1928). From 1933-35 he and painter Jared French traveled to Europe, where he learned the egg-tempera technique later used in many of his paintings. A figurative artist, he painted in a vivid style sometimes dubbed magic realism. Cadmus first came to wide public attention when his painting The Fleet's In (1934), an illustrationlike frieze of lubricious sailors flirting with prostitutes and a gay man, was removed from a Corcoran Gallery exhibition by a U.S. Navy admiral who found the work "depraved." Thereafter, crowds flocked to his exhibitions. Cadmus became known for lively group scenes, often sexually-charged or homoerotic, and for tranquil portraits, often of male nudes. Among his best-known works are Coney Island (1934), Sailors and Floosies (1938), and the Seven Deadly Sins series (1945-49). Cadmus also designed sets and costumes for the ballet Filling Station (1938), directed by his brother-in-law, Lincoln Kirstein, and was known for his drawings, prints, and photographs.

Cadmus may have a number of meanings:

• Cadmus, in Greek mythology the son of the Phoenician king of Tyre and brother of Europa
• Mount Cadmus, a mountain in Asia Minor
• Project Cadmus, a government organization in DC Comics
• Cadmus of Miletus, a 6th century BC logographer
• Cadmus of Kos, tyrant of Zancle, son of Scythes
• Paul Cadmus, an American artist
• Cadmus, a German mainframe computer brand in 1980s and 1990s
• , five ships of the Royal Navy