Pascin – The Three Graces

Jules Pascin, alias Julius Mordecai Pinkas
(1885 Widin – 1930 Paris)

THE THREE GRACES

Drawn in Paris in 1907
Black ink on paper, 18 x 11 cm (passe-partout cut-out)

Provenance:
Frederic Stern Collection, Paris

Exhibition & Literature:
Paris, Galerie Romanet, Trois cents aquarelles et dessin. Renoir à Picasso, 1963

Expertise by Rosemarie Napolitano from the Comité Pascin, Paris, 26 November 2024

Ernest Hemingway befriended Pascin in Paris in the 1920s and dedicated a chapter to him in ‘A Moveable Feast’. ‘Pascin was a very good painter, and he was drunk, constantly, deliberately drunk, but with a clear mind.’ In fact, despite or perhaps because of his condition, Pascin painted like a man possessed, producing thousands of paintings and sketches, painting against the depression that he succumbed to in 1930.

Jules Pascin’s expressionist work revolves around the erotic female nude. Apart from portraits, he painted little else, causing a sensation in Paris, especially in the 1920s. His ‘Three Graces’ were created during his early days in Paris, where, after completing his academic training in Bucharest, Vienna, Munich and Berlin, he attended the Ecole Matisse from 1905 onwards and worked as an illustrator. In Munich, he had worked for the satirical magazine Simplicissimus, joined the Secession in Berlin and become acquainted with German Expressionism. Both had an influence on his work. He was particularly influenced by the cheeky erotic works of George Grosz and Otto Dix.

Since ancient times, ‘The Three Graces’ have been an integral part of art. There is hardly an artist who has not attempted this motif. Compared to Thorvaldsen’s Graces, for example, Pascin’s appear rather casual. At first glance, they are just three young beauties with their hair down, one wearing slippers, but immediately recognisable as ‘The Three Graces’ due to the pictorial tradition. Pascin followed the academic tradition with a mocking wink. Ultimately, the motif has always been a welcome opportunity to nip any protests from guardians of public morality in the bud. Three naked women? No problem, they’re goddesses…