Jules Pascin (1885–1930)

Title: Salomé Salomé
Technique: Etching and open-bite on paper
Date: Plate created by Pascin in 1927
Edition: Original etching, printed by the artist’s estate around 1980
Numbering: Numbered 67/100 lower left
Signature: Stamped signature lower right
Plate size: 24 × 32 cm
Paper size: 38 × 56 cm

A labyrinthine scene

In this etching, Pascin unfolds a teeming universe where sinuous lines create a theater both carnal and chaotic. The eye is immediately seized by the density of interwoven figures, as if trapped within an organic network. Naked bodies, torsos, arms, and faces emerge from the dark matter, overlapping, dissolving, and reappearing in an uneasy dance. Nothing is fixed: everything dissolves into a continuous motion, verging on trance.

The myth revisited

The title Salomé evokes both the biblical and the decadent imagination — that of the femme fatale who, through her dance, obtains the head of John the Baptist. But in Pascin’s work, the narrative scatters, fragments. Instead of focusing on an isolated heroine, the artist offers a kaleidoscope of bodies and impulses. Biblical violence becomes here an orgy of forms and desires, a bacchanal in which Salomé’s figure seems to dissolve into the multitude, as though the myth itself fragmented into countless fantasies.

The graphic language

Pascin’s line, nervous and incisive, oscillates between sketch and deep engraving. He scratches the plate, multiplying contours until the surface is saturated. The figures seem to emerge from an indistinct magma, suspended between matter and void, between shadow and light. This graphic ambiguity perfectly conveys the tension of the work: attraction and repulsion, eroticism and sacrifice, ecstasy and collapse.

A dance of the abyss

The piece can be read as an infernal dance, a round of desires and bodies consumed by inner fire. In this etching, Pascin delivers a hallucinatory vision, both biblical and modern, where the myth of Salomé becomes a pretext for probing the excesses of human passion. Salomé, Salomé is less an illustration than a plunge into the abyss of desire and chaos — a mirror held up to our darkest part.

Biography

Jules PASCIN (Julius Mordecai PINCAS)
Painter and printmaker
Vidin (Bulgaria), March 31, 1885 – Montmartre, June 1930

Origins and training

Born into a wealthy merchant family in Vidin, his family moved to Bucharest in 1892. He studied in Vienna.
In 1901, his affair with a famous courtesan and brothel owner in Bucharest undoubtedly influenced the young painter.
He then attended art schools in Budapest and Vienna (1902) and Munich (1903).

At the request of his scandalized family, he changed his name to Pascin.
During his time in Germany, he contributed to Simplicissimus, the satirical magazine that published his first erotic and humorous drawings.

Arrival in Paris and early years (1905–1914)

On December 24, 1905, he arrived in Paris and stayed at the Hôtel des Écoles, rue Delambre.
In 1906, the year Modigliani arrived in Montmartre, he met Hermine David and moved into the Hôtel Beauséjour, rue Lepic, where he remained until 1909.

• 1911: exhibition in Berlin.

• 1912: exhibition in Cologne.

He later returned to rue Joseph Bara until leaving for the United States in 1914.

Stay in the United States (1914–1920)

Upon arrival, he joined the artistic community at the Penguin Club.
In 1915, he was joined by Hermine David.
He took American nationality, and they married in 1920.

Return to Paris and artistic maturity (1920–1930)

In October 1920, he returned to Paris and rekindled his relationship with Lucy Vidil, then married to Norwegian painter Per Krohg, beginning a stormy affair.
He rented a studio at 15 rue Hégésippe Moreau.

Art dealer Berthe Weill exhibited his work several times (1920 and 1927).
In 1922, he took over the studio of painter Marchand, 73 rue Caulaincourt.
In 1923, he settled at 36 boulevard de Clichy, his final studio.

In 1924, with Daragnès and André Warnod, he perfected his etching technique. Roger Lacourière had already published his Cendrillon (Éditions de la Roseraie).

Between 1925 and 1929, he traveled extensively — Italy, Palestine, New York, Spain, Portugal — often with Lucy. In 1929, she rented a studio at Villa des Camélias to keep him away from Montmartre.

In 1930, he exhibited at Knoedler Gallery in New York (with little success) and at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris.

Death and funeral

On June 2, 1930, Pascin committed suicide in his studio at 36 boulevard de Clichy.
His friend Kisling arranged his body, surrounded by friends: Per and Lucy Krohg, Roland Dorgelès, Georges Papazoff, Hermine David, Chana Orloff, Marie Vassilieff, and several of his models.

On June 7, 1930, all Parisian galleries closed for his funeral.
He rests at Montparnasse Cemetery, where a poem by André Salmon is inscribed on his grave:

"Free man, hero of dream and desire,
with bleeding hands pushing the golden doors,
mind and notebook, Pascin scorned to choose,
and master of life, he commanded death."

Graphic work

A substantial body of prints, echoing the themes of his paintings: nudes, women, girls, street scenes, brothels, travels.
He employed every technique:

• Woodcuts (Montmartre 1910–1915, Filles de la nuit, 1919)

• Lithography, drypoint, aquatint

• Etchings (from 1912 onward)

• Soft ground etching (ca. 1923)

• Mezzotints (at the end of his life)

Illustrations include:

• Pierre Mac Orlan (Aux lumières de Paris, 1925)

• André Warnod (Trois petites filles dans la rue, 1925)

• André Salmon (Vénus dans la balance, 1925)

Studios

• Hôtel Beauséjour, rue Lepic (1905–1909)

• 49 rue Gabrielle (1909)

• 2 impasse Girardon

• 15 rue Hégésippe Moreau (c. 1920)

• 73 rue Caulaincourt (1922)

• 36 boulevard de Clichy (1923–1930), where he ended his life.

Legacy

• 1993: retrospective exhibition The Studios of Pascin and His Friends at the Musée de Montmartre.

  • Scenography: Guy Krohg

  • Curator: Sylvie Buisson (catalogue)

  • Scientific advisor: Rosemary Napolitano, official Pascin archivist