Jules Pascin ExhibitionClosed

Exhibition Overview

From the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and European private collections comes a Pascin retrospective featuring an exemplary selection of works

Assembled with the full cooperation of Comité PASCIN in Paris, this retrospective is the first full Pascin exhibition in Japan in 16 years.

Jules Pascin (1885-1930) was a central figure of the École De Paris movement, which was largely made up of non-French artists working in Paris in the 1920s. He was close friends with Tsuguharu Fujita and Moïse Kisling and worked with such figures as Picasso and Chagall. In the tumultuous roaring twenties that followed World War I, he was a favorite in Paris, where he received critical acclaim and sold numerous works. His most popular works were portraits of women and children rendered with fine, trembling lines, the spaces filled with soft colors glowing with the luminance of mother-of-pearl.

The exhibition introduces works from his formative years in Munich in the early part of the 20th century, when he devoted himself to practicing sketches while contributing sharply observed caricatures of the times to magazines. Later he moved to Paris, and the exhibition includes watercolor illustrations from books and personal works from this period when he was first beginning to seriously take up oil painting. The outbreak of World War I prompted him to move to America, and the exhibition includes works from this era that show the influence of leading peers and the American landscapes he observed on his travels. The final section of the exhibition presents the highly mature pearl-colored oils from his career peak in the late 1920s, as well as a wide variety of prints, pastels, collages, and more.

The exhibition traces the steps of a travelling artist who experienced the roaring twenties firsthand, and who was one of the leading figures of the École De Paris.

Exhibition Highlights

(Please note that exhibited pieces may change without notice)

I. From Munich to Paris (1903 to 1905)

The two years from 1903 to 1905 were a short but key period in the growth of Pascin as an artist. He completed his basic fine art training in Vienna, and his sharp eye, observational skills, and superb sketching ability were quickly recognized. He tasted success early and began his professional career contributing drawings to Simplicissimus, a popular satirical magazine published in Munich. At the same time, he was working to refine his techniques, attending fine art school with a focus on anatomical and expressive figure drawings. In this period, he became involved with and heavily influenced by the Expressionist movement in Germany. Not content with a career as a caricaturist for magazines, Pascin would eventually move to Paris to become an artist.

Featured works

Young Woman from Munich (1903)
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
Portrait of a Woman (1903)
Private collection
Inside the Room (1903)
Private collection

Young Woman from Munich
1903, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
©Eric Emo / Musée d’Art
Moderne / Roger-Viollet

II. Paris, Montparnasse, and Montmartre (1905-1914)

Pascin moved to Paris in 1905 and found himself in Montparnasse. While frequenting Le Dôme Café with colleagues from his Munich days, he also entered a private painting academy, visited the studios of friends, and continued to hone his oil painting skills. Compared to his works from his Munich years, his sketches during this time are marked by smoother, more elegant and flowing lines, and begin to show the influence of his life in Paris. During this time, Pascin also encountered Fauvism, which like German Expressionism also had a big influence on him.

Featured works

Portrait of Hermine David (1908)
Musée de Grenoble
Two Young Girls (1907)
Centre Pompidou
Model (1912)
Musée de Grenoble

Portrait of Hermine David
1908, Musée de Grenoble
©Musée Grenoble

III. The United States (1914/15 to 1920)

In October 1914, Pascin arrived in New York after fleeing the war in Europe. By then, he was already a known artist whose work had won acclaim at the Armory Show of the International Exhibition of Modern Art just a year ago. In New York, he became a member of the so-called Penguin Club, and played a role in freeing American avant-garde artists from Academic art. Pascin, however, was unable to bear the cold of New York winters, and so he took to living with his future wife Hermine in the south of the country and Cuba. He was inspired by the vegetation and natural scenery of these warmer climes and the lives of the people who lived there, and began to produce works rich in local color.

Featured works

A Cuban Gathering (1915/1917)
Private collection
A Beautiful Creole Woman (1916)
Private collection, Paris

A Cuban Gathering
1915/1917, Private collection

IV. The Roaring Twenties (1920 to 1930)

With World War I over, Pascin returned to Paris in October 1920 and again took up his life as a Parisian. He established a studio in Montmartre and revived Parisian friendships that had been dormant for over six years. The valuable experiences in America had matured him as an artist, and the following period was to mark the culmination of his artistic growth. Around 1927, he reached the height of his fame when he entered what critics called his “mother-of-pearl period,” creating distinct oils with unique, softly iridescent colors and trembling lines. At the same time, Pascin was growing increasingly frustrated due to an unhappy relationship with his lover, Lucy, contract problems with galleries, and his dissolute lifestyle. In the works he produced toward the end of his career—in his suburban studio far from the bustle of Montmartre—the lines and colors become so harmonious they seem to melt together.

Featured works

Portrait of Lucy at a Table (1928)
Private collection Dance (1925)
Aktis Gallery, London A Young Actress (1927)
Private collection, Paris Eliane with Long Hair (1927-29)
Centre Pompidou Mirielle (1930)
Centre Pompidou

Young Dancing Girl
1924
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
©Eric Emo/Musée d’Art Moderne/ Roger-Viollet

Portrait of Lucy at a Table
1928, Private collection