Pascin, Jules (Julius Pincus)

(1885–1930)

   French artist. Pascin was one of the remarkable group of Jewish painters who formed the School of Paris, after World War I. Among other members were MODIGLIANI, CHAGALL and SOUTINE. They all were Expressionists in a highly individual way, outside the mainstream of French art at the time. All except Modigliani came from Eastern Europe, Pascin having been born in Bulgaria of a Sephardi father and a non- Jewish mother.

   He was a brilliant draftsman rather than a painter and depicted human frailty with a sharp and satirical eye in the tradition of Goya, Hogarth and Toulouse- Lautrec. He first became known as a cartoonist for the German magazine Simplicissimus, and as a book illustrator, before settling in Paris. Restless by nature, he spent the war years in the United States, and after returning to Paris spent part of his time moving round Europe and North Africa, filling his sketch books.

   Pascin’s subjects were often unsavoury - harlots in provocative poses, and the denizens of the seedy cafes he frequented. Yet they were redeemed by his sinuous line and light delicate colour.

   He was a man of poor health and in his later years was depressed by a chronic liver complaint, the result of his dissipated way of life. He committed suicide at the age of forty-five by hanging himself in his disorderly studio, on the day that an exhibition of his work was to be opened in an important gallery.