{"data":{"id":"581","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":581,"topgoose_id":14480,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":581,"title":"Distinguished Air","display_artist_text":"Charles Demuth","display_date":"1930","accession_number":"68.16","dimensions":"Sheet (Irregular): 16 1/4 × 12 3/16 in. (41.3 × 31 cm)","medium":"Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper","department":"collection","classification":"Drawings","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Charles Simon","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eCharles Demuth, \u003cem\u003eDistinguished Air\u003c/em\u003e, 1930. Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper, sheet (Irregular): 16 1/4 × 12 3/16 in. (41.3 × 31 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Charles Simon 68.16\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eThis watercolor by Charles Demuth is based on a short story by Robert McAlmon, set in the decadent, sex and drugs-filled world of post-World War I Berlin. Demuth recasts a scene from the story, which took place in one of Berlin’s “queer cafes,” as the opening of an art exhibition where a provocative woman in evening dress, a male homosexual couple, and a heterosexual couple look at Constantin Brancusi’s famous sculpture, \u003ci\u003ePrincess X\u003c/i\u003e, (1915-16), whose overtly phallic form scandalized many contemporary viewers. The title “Distinguished Air” is derived from the narrator’s description of the protagonist, a worldly but dissolute American. Here, the gentleman carrying a cane seems to gaze at the crotch of the sailor, obliquely mirroring the infatuation of McAlmon’s protagonist with a handsome soldier. In the 1930s, Demuth’s watercolors often contained themes of underground sexual freedom and licentiousness, subjects which likely had personal resonance for the artist as a homosexual in a culture which was largely inhospitable.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Four men and a woman stand closely together admiring a large abstract sculpture on a pedestal.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:20:32.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:00.851-05:00","images":[{"id":92132,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/581/68_16_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"344","type":"artist"}]}}}}