Editing Jules Pascin

{{Short description|American, Jewish painter}}
{{Infobox artist
| name             = Jules Pascin
| image            = Jules Pascin im Café du Dôme, Paris 1910.png
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1885|03|31|mf=y}}
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|1930|06|05|1885|03|31|mf=y}}
| birth_place      = Vidin, Bulgaria
| death_place      = Paris, France
| nationality      = America, French, Bulgarian
| movement         = [[École de Paris]], [[Expressionism]]
| resting_place    = [[cimetière du Montparnasse]]
| education        = [[Moritz Heymann's academy]],<br /> [[Académie Colarossi]],<br />[[Académie Matisse]]
| spouse           = [[Hermine David]]
| partner          = [[Lucy Krohg]]
| caption          = Pascin in 1910
}}

'''Julius Mordecai Pincas''' (March 31, 1885&nbsp;– June 5, 1930), known as '''Pascin''' ({{IPA|fr|pas.kin|lang}},<ref>"... Jules Pascin (pronounced Pass-kin, born Pincas, first name unremembered, in Bulgaria of a Spanish-Jewish father and a Serbo-Italian mother)" ([http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,753399,00.html "Art: Beauty & the Baker"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203123555/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,753399,00.html |date=2022-12-03 }}, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine, Monday, July 18, 1932)</ref><ref>"He pronounced his name 'Pass-''keen''', and so did his friends." ([[John Ulric Nef (economic historian)|John Ulric Nef]]<!--(the author of ''The Rise of the British Coal Industry'', mentioned in his text)-->, "Reminiscences of Jules Pascin" (June 1966), in Tom L. Freudenheim, ''Pascin'' (exhibition catalog), University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, 1966)</ref> erroneously {{IPA|fr|pas.kɛ̃|}} or {{IPA|fr|pa.sɛ̃|}}), '''Jules Pascin''', also known as the "Prince of [[Montparnasse]]", was a Bulgarian artist of the [[School of Paris]], known for his paintings and drawings. He later became an American citizen. His most frequent subject was women, depicted in casual poses, usually nude or partly dressed.

Pascin was educated in [[Vienna]] and [[Munich]]. He traveled for a time in the United States, spending most of his time in the South. He is best known as a Parisian painter, who associated with the artistic circles of Montparnasse, and was one of the emigres of the [[School of Paris]]. Having struggled with depression and alcoholism, he died by suicide at the age of 45.

== Early life ==
Julius Mordecai Pincas was born in [[Vidin]], Bulgaria, the eighth of eleven children,<ref name="JVL">{{cite web | url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Pascin.html | title=Jules Pascin | publisher=American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise | access-date=November 30, 2015}}</ref> to the [[Sephardic]] Jewish family of a [[grain trade|grain merchant]] named Marcus Pincas.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pascin-expertise.org/index.php?p=1_16|title=Biography » Pascin Expertise - Bienvenu sur Pascin Expertise|last=author|website=www.pascin-expertise.org}}</ref><ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal|jstor=774079|title=Jules Pascin in the New World|first=Alfred|last=Werner|date=Autumn 1959 |journal=College Art Journal|volume=19|issue=1|pages=30–39|doi=10.2307/774079|s2cid=162515886 }}</ref> Originally from the city of [[Ruse, Bulgaria|Ruse]], the Pincas family was one of the wealthiest in Vidin; they bought and exported wheat, rice, maize and sunflower.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.centropa.org/index.php?nID=30&x=c2VhcmNoVHlwZT1CaW9EZXRhaWw7IHNlYXJjaFZhbHVlPTY=|title=Home - centropa.org|website=www.centropa.org}}</ref> His mother, Sofie (Sophie) Pincas, belonged to a Sephardic family, Russo, which had moved from [[Trieste]] to [[Zemun]], where she and her husband lived before moving to Vidin and where their older children were born.<ref name="jstor.org"/><ref>[http://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/viennaWeddingsSearchEngine.php?PageKind=exact&PageMax=&RegisterNoKind=exact&RegisterNoMax=&WeddingDayKind=exact&WeddingDayMax=&WeddingMonthKind=exact&WeddingMonthMax=&WeddingYearKind=exact&WeddingYearMax=&GroomGivenNameKind=exact&GroomGivenNameSoundex=&offset=351 Sephardic marriages in Vienna]: February 1901 — Abraham Alfred Yerocham of [[Plovdiv]] (son of Menachem and Sol Yerocham) and Rebecca Pincas of Zemun (daughter of Marcus and Sofie Pincas).</ref> 

The family spoke [[Judaeo-Spanish]] at home.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://modernartconsulting.ru/en/2011/12/ilya-ehrenburg-about-jules-pascin/ |title=Ilya Ehrenburg about Jules Pascin (''People, Years, Life: memoires'') |access-date=2013-02-26 |archive-date=2018-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180701164926/http://modernartconsulting.ru/en/2011/12/ilya-ehrenburg-about-jules-pascin/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1892, he moved with his parents to [[Bucharest]], where his father opened a grain company, "Marcus Pincas & Co". Pascin worked briefly for his father's firm at the age of fifteen, but also frequented a local [[brothel]] where he made his earliest drawings.<ref name="JVL" /> His first artistic training was in Vienna in 1902 at age seventeen.<ref name="JVL" /> In 1903 he relocated to Munich, where he studied at Moritz Heymann's academy.<ref name="Alley_&_Barlow">Alley and Barlow, ''Oxford Art Online''</ref> There he got in touch with [[Paul Klee]], [[Alfred Kubin]] and [[Wassily Kandinsky]].<ref name=":0" /> In 1905 he began contributing drawings to ''[[Simplicissimus]]'', a satirical magazine published in Munich.<ref name="Dupouy_5">Dupouy 2014, p. 5</ref> Because his father objected to the family name being associated with these drawings,<ref name="Dupouy_5" /> the 20-year-old artist adopted the [[pseudonym]] Pascin (an [[anagram]] of Pincas) with his father's permission.<ref>According to Alfred Werner, "he never added his first name, even in its French form. His suicide note is signed 'Jules Pincas dit Pascin.' " Werner 1972, p. vii</ref><ref name=":0" /> He continued to contribute drawings to a Munich daily until 1929.<ref name="JVL" />

=== Paris ===
In December 1905, Pascin moved to Paris, becoming part of the great migration of artists to that city at the start of the 20th century. There he was welcome by "Les Dômiers" the regular customers of [[Le Dôme Café|Cafe le Dome]].<ref name=":0" /> The Dômiers introduced Pascin to [[Hermine David|Hermaine David]] in 1907. She was also a painter and at the time a student in the [[Académie Julian]] and student of [[Jean-Paul Laurens]]. The two became lovers. In that same year Pascin had his first solo exhibition at [[Paul Cassirer]] Gallery in Berlin.<ref name="JVL"/><ref name=":0" /> Despite his social life, Pascin created thousands of watercolors and sketches, plus drawings and caricatures that he sold to various newspapers and magazines. In 1908, Pascin began to study in the [[Académie Matisse]].<ref name=":0" /> Pascin would visit the [[Louvre]], taking a special interest in the masters of the 18th century especially [[Jean-Baptiste Greuze|Greuze]], Boucher, [[Antoine Watteau|Watteau]] and Fragonard.<ref name=":0" /> 

He exhibited his works in commercial galleries and in the [[Salon d'Automne]], the [[Salon des Indépendants]], and the exhibitions of the [[Berlin Secession]]<ref name="Alley_&_Barlow" /> and at the Sonderbund-Ausstellung in Cologne.<ref name="JVL" /> Between 1905 and 1914 he exhibited drawings, watercolors, and prints, but rarely paintings.<ref>Diehl 1968, p. 26.</ref> It was not until about 1907–1909 that he produced his first paintings,<ref>Diehl 1968, p. 41.</ref> which were portraits and nudes in a style influenced by [[Fauvism]] and [[Cézanne]].<ref name="Alley_&_Barlow" /> Around 1911, Pascin persuaded [[Aïcha Goblet]] to become his artists' model. She sat exclusively for him for around a year, before working with other artists and they stayed good friends until his death.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fabre |first=Michel |date=2007 |title=Rediscovering Aïcha, Lucy and D'al-Al, Colored French Stage Artists in Josephine Baker: A Century in the Spotlight |url=https://sfonline.barnard.edu/baker/print_mfabre.htm |access-date=2024-09-19 |website=sfonline.barnard.edu}}</ref> 

Pascin wanted to become a serious painter, but in time he became deeply depressed over his inability to achieve critical success with his efforts. Dissatisfied with his slow progress in the new medium, he studied the art of drawing at the [[Académie Colarossi]], and painted copies after the masters in the [[Louvre]].<ref>Diehl 1968, pp. 37-41.</ref> He exhibited in the United States for the first time in 1913, when twelve of his works were shown at the [[Armory Show]] in New York.<ref name="JVL" /> 
 
Pascin relocated to London at the outbreak of World War I to avoid service in the Bulgarian army and left for the United States on October 3, 1914.<ref name="JVL"/> On October 31, Hermine David sailed for the United States to join him.

== United States ==
[[File:Les petites américaines (Les Demoiselles américaines), Jules Pascin, Etats-Unis 1916.jpg|thumb|''Les petites américaines'' (''Little American Girls''), 1916, oil on canvas, [[Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme|Paris Museum of Jewish Art and History]]]]
[[Image:Jules Pascin - Hermine in bed.jpg|thumb|''Hermine in Bed'', watercolor]]
Pascin and David lived in the United States from 1914 to 1920, sitting out World War I. They visited New York City, where David had an exhibit. Pascin frequented nightclubs, and met artists such as [[Yasuo Kuniyoshi]], [[Gaston Lachaise]] and [[Guy Pène du Bois]],<ref name="Alley_&_Barlow" /> but most of his time in America was spent traveling throughout the South.<ref>Werner 1972, p. x.</ref> He also visited [[Cuba]]. He made many drawings of street life in [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]], [[New Orleans]], and other places he visited. Some of his works of 1915 and 1916 are in a [[Cubism|Cubist]] style, which he soon abandoned.<ref name="Alley_&_Barlow"/>

In 1918 Pascin married Hermine David at City Hall in New York City. Their witnesses were [[Max Weber (artist)|Max Weber]] and [[Maurice Sterne]], friends and painters who both lived in New York. In September 1920, Pascin became a naturalized United States citizen, with support from [[Alfred Stieglitz]] and Maurice Sterne,<ref name="JVL"/> but returned to Paris soon afterward.<ref name="Alley_&_Barlow"/> There he began a relationship with [[Lucy Vidil Krohg]], who had been his lover ten years earlier but had married the Norwegian painter [[Per Krohg]] during Pascin's years in America.<ref>Diehl 1968, pp. 25, 78, 93.</ref>

Especially after he returned to France, he became the symbol of the [[Montparnasse]] artistic community and is more associated with France than the United States. Always in his bowler hat, he was a witty presence, along with his good friend [[Constant Detré]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cdetre.com/crbst_14.html|title=Official site of Painter Constant Detré}}</ref> at [[Le Dôme Café]], [[Jockey-Club de Paris]], and the other haunts of the area's [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] society.<ref name="JVL"/> Pascin visited Bulgaria in 1923 and 1924 and at an uncertain later date.

== Career ==
[[File:Portrait of Lucy Krohg Jules Pascin.jpeg|thumb|''Portrait of [[Lucy Krohg]]'', c. 1925, oil and pencil on canvas]]

Like [[Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec]], Pascin drew upon his surroundings and his friends, both male and female, as subjects. During the 1920s, Pascin mostly painted fragile ''petites filles'', prostitutes waiting for clients, or models waiting for the sitting to end. His fleetingly rendered paintings sold readily, but the money he made was quickly spent. Famous as the host of numerous large parties in his flat, whenever he was invited elsewhere for dinner, he arrived with as many bottles of wine as he could carry. He frequently led a large group of friends on summer picnics beside the river [[Marne (river)|Marne]], where their excursions lasted all afternoon.

According to his biographer, Georges Charensol:

<blockquote>Scarcely had he chosen his table at the [[Le Dôme Café|Dôme]] or the Sélect than he would be surrounded by five or six friends; at nine o'clock, when we got up to dinner, we would be 20 in all, and later in the evening, when we decided to go up to [[Montmartre]] to Charlotte Gardelle's or the Princess Marfa's—where Pascin loved to take the place of the drummer in the jazz band—he had to provide for 10 taxis.{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}}</blockquote>

Among Pascin's circle of Parisian friends was [[Ernest Hemingway]], whose memoir ''[[A Moveable Feast]]'' includes a chapter titled "With Pascin At the Dôme", which recounts a night in 1923 when he met Pascin and two of his young models for drinks at the café.<ref>Lynn, Kenneth Schuyler (1995) ''Hemingway''. Harvard University Press. p. 586. {{ISBN|0674387325}}.</ref> The closing of the chapter was especially poignant, where Hemingway writes:

<blockquote>...He looked more like a Broadway character of the Nineties than the lovely painter that he was, and afterwards, when he had hanged himself, I liked to remember him as he was that night at the Dome. They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure.<ref>https://archive.org/details/a-moveable-feast-by-ernest-hemingway/page/n55/mode/2up</ref></blockquote>

Pascin's fellow artist friends and contemporaries included: [[Chaïm Soutine|Chaim Soutine]], [[Yitzhak Frenkel|Isaac Frenkel Frenel]], [[Michel Kikoine]] and other Jewish artists of the [[School of Paris|School Of Paris]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-12-03 |title=artnet Galleries: A House in Safed by Yitzhak Frenkel-Frenel from Jordan-Delhaise Gallery |url=http://www.artnet.com/artwork/426130176/117181/yitzhak-frenkel-frenel-a-house-in-safed.html |access-date=2023-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203032611/http://www.artnet.com/artwork/426130176/117181/yitzhak-frenkel-frenel-a-house-in-safed.html |archive-date=2013-12-03 }}</ref>

== Style ==
His experience as a satirical draftsman and his knowledge of [[German expressionist cinema|German expressionism]] are evident in his early works, where some portraits evoke [[Otto Dix]] or [[George Grosz|Grosz]] with a less incisive and less cruel touch. He quickly evolved towards pastel-like, almost unreal colors that he skillfully harmonized with the theme of the female body, the center of his production. Among the painters of the School of Paris, Pascin, his art noted itself with the imposition of  expressive truth and melancholic gentleness. He painted with indulgence the underworld "of the girls," using a pearly touch, light with iridescent colors, in shades of gray, pink, ocher, and violet-blue. The languid bodies with softened forms exuded a heavy scent of eroticism. These women, captured in their intimacy, are, in fact, the mirror of Pascin's existential malaise. 

His vibrant graphic style, with lines that only vaguely outline the contours of the body, allowed him to depict his models bathed in a light that reflects more a state of mind than the reality of a body. In this regard, he can be seen as an unsparing continuator of the 18th-century masters and their taste for freedom and libertinage.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2019-01-03 |title=Jules PASCIN |url=https://ecoledeparis.org/jules-pascin/ |access-date=2024-01-06 |website=Bureau d’art Ecole de Paris |language=en-US}}</ref> [[Image:Jules Pascin Portrait Mimi Laurent.jpg|thumb|''Portrait of [[Mimi Laurent]]'', c. 1927–28, oil on canvas, [[Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden]], [[Washington, DC.]]]]

== Death ==
Pascin struggled with depression and alcoholism.  "[D]riven to the wall by his own legend", according to art critic Gaston Diehl, he died by suicide at the age of 45 on the eve of a prestigious solo show.<ref name="Diehl78" /> He slit his wrists and hanged himself in his studio in Montmartre. He left a message written in blood on the wall to his mistress Lucy Krohg.<ref name="Diehl78">Diehl 1968, p. 78</ref> In his last will and testament, Pascin split his estate equally between his wife, Hermine David, and Lucy Krohg.<ref>This will was contested by Pascin's estranged family through Pascin's brother, Joseph Pincas. The three parties ultimately agreed to share the estate.{{Citation needed|date=July 2010}}</ref>

On the day of Pascin's funeral, June 7, 1930, thousands of acquaintances from the artistic community, and dozens of waiters and bartenders from the restaurants and saloons Pascin had frequented, all dressed in black, walked behind his coffin for three miles, from his studio at 36 boulevard de Clichy to the [[Cimetière de Saint-Ouen]].<ref name="JVL"/> A year later, Pascin's family had his remains re-interred at the more prestigious [[Montparnasse Cemetery|cimetière du Montparnasse]].

==Honours==
[[Pascin Point]] in [[Antarctica]] is named after Jules Pascin.<ref>[https://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/scar/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=139008 Pascin Point.] SCAR [[Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica]]</ref>

In 2023, the former synagogue in Pascin's birthplace was reopened as the [[Vidin Synagogue|Jules Pascin Cultural Centre]].<ref name="heritage">{{Cite web |date=2023-09-04 |title=Bulgaria: With gala ceremony, the restored Vidin synagogue, which long stood derelict, opens as the Jules Pascin cultural centre |url=https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2023/09/04/bulgaria-vidin-synagogue/ |access-date=2024-06-17 |website=Jewish Heritage Europe |language=en-US}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Marc Chagall]]
* [[Amedeo Modigliani|Amadeo Modigliani]]

== Notes ==
{{Reflist}}

== References ==
* Alley, Ronald and Margaret Barlow. "Pascin, Jules." ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press. Web.
* Charensol, Georges and Jules Pascin (1928). ''Jules Pascin''. Collection "Les Artistes Juifs". Paris: Éditions "Le Triangle".
* Diehl, Gaston (1968). ''Pascin''. New York: Crown. {{OCLC|74469}}
* Dupouy, Alexandre (2014). ''Pascin''. Parkstone Press. {{ISBN|978-1-78310-533-5}}
* {{cite journal |last= Libhart |first=Myles  |title=THREE GIRLS by Jules Pascin (1885—1930)  |journal =Brooklyn Museum Bulletin |volume = 18|issue=2 |date=Winter 1957 |jstor=26458760 |pages=8–10  }}
* Werner, Alfred (1972). ''Pascin: 110 Drawings''. New York: Dover. {{ISBN|0-486-20299-2}}
*[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445505/Jules-Pascin Pascin, Jules at Encyclopædia Britannica]

== External links ==
* {{Commons category-inline|Jules Pascin}}
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/pascin_jules.html Information in ArtCyclopedia]
* [http://www.artnet.com/artists/jules-pascin/ Jules Pascin on artnet]
*{{Art UK bio}}
{{École de Paris}}{{Expressionism}}{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pascin, Jules}}
[[Category:1885 births]]
[[Category:1930 suicides]]
[[Category:1930 deaths]]
[[Category:Jewish American painters]]
[[Category:20th-century Bulgarian painters]]
[[Category:20th-century French painters]]
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[[Category:20th-century American printmakers]]
[[Category:Burials at Saint-Ouen Cemetery]]
[[Category:Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery]]