Jules Pascin

Jules Pascin , 1885-1930, American painter, b. Bulgaria. Born Julius Pincas, he moved to Paris in 1905. He acquired American citizenship in 1914. Essentially a draftsman, belonging to no one school, he portrayed, with flickering line and opalescent tone, the heavy sensuality of his female models. Young Woman in Red (1924; Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris) is characteristic. Pascin was a colorful and generous character in bohemian Parisian society. Two years after he returned to Paris he committed suicide.

Bibliography: See his sketchbook, ed. by J. P. Leeper (1964); biography by A. Werner (1962); study by G. Diehl (1968).

Pascin, Jules ( Julius Pincas) (1885–1930). Bulgarian-born painter and draughtsman. He led a wandering life, and although he acquired American citizenship when he moved to New York during the First World War, he is chiefly associated with Paris, where he belonged to the circle of émigré artists who gravitated around Chagall, Modigliani, and Soutine. His work includes portraits of his friends, café scenes, and flower pieces, as well as a few large paintings with biblical themes, but the bulk of his output consists of erotically charged studies of nude (or very flimsily dressed) teenage girls. They have been compared to the work of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, but Pascin's paintings are less penetrating and more obviously posed. He can be rather repetitive, but his best work has great delicacy of colour and handling and a poignant sense of lost innocence. Pascin's art brought him financial success, but he led a dissolute life and was emotionally unstable; on the day on which a major exhibition of his work was due to open at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris he committed suicide in his studio (slashing his wrists and then hanging himself).

Pascin, Jules ( Julius Pincas) (1885–1930). Bulgarian-born painter and draughtsman. He led a wandering life, and although he acquired American citizenship in 1920, after moving to New York during the First World War, he is chiefly associated with Paris, where he belonged to the circle of emigré artists who gravitated around Chagall, Modigliani, and Soutine. He was born in Vidin, Bulgaria, the son of a Spanish father and an Italian mother. After travelling widely and studying painting in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna, he settled in Paris in 1905. In the same year he adopted the name Pascin to distance himself from his family, who disapproved of his bohemian life. He lived in the USA from 1914 to 1920, then returned to Paris. His work includes portraits of his friends, café scenes, and flower pieces, as well as a few large paintings with biblical themes, but the bulk of his output consists of erotically charged studies of nude (or very flimsily dressed) teenage girls. They have been compared with the work of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, but Pascin's paintings are less penetrating and more obviously posed. He can be rather repetitive, but his best work has great delicacy of colour and handling and a poignant sense of lost innocence. Pascin achieved financial success, but he led a notoriously dissolute life and was emotionally unstable; on the day on which a major exhibition of his work was due to open at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris he committed suicide in his studio (slashing his wrists and then hanging himself). As a mark of respect, several galleries in Paris closed on the day of his funeral. There are examples of his work in many major collections, notably the Barnes Foundation, Merrion, Pennsylvania, which has about 50 Pascins.