Jules Pascin (Primary Title)

Man Ray, American, 1890 - 1976 (Artist)

1923
American
Works On Paper
Gelatin silver print
Image: 8 3/8 × 6 5/8 in. (21.27 × 16.83 cm)
2018.359
Not on view

Jules Pascin (1885–1930) was born Julius Mordecai Pincas in Vidin, Bulgaria, and changed his name anagrammatically to the more French-sounding Pascin shortly after moving to Paris in 1905. By 1923, when Man Ray made this portrait, Pascin had become associated with the School of Paris, an eclectic group of foreign-born painters and sculptors that included such colleagues as Marc Chagall, Moïse Kisling, Jacques Lipchitz, and Chaïm Soutine. Championed by French art critic André Warnod, the School of Paris challenged the growing anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s by highlighting the profound contributions these expatriate artists, many of whom, like Pascin, were Eastern European Jews, had made to French culture. In Man Ray’s portrait, the bowler-hatted Pascin is seated in front of the American artist’s now lost 1913 Tapestry Painting, which hung upside down and back to front in his studio. The work provided a striking backdrop of jagged lines, circular forms, and stained canvas. 


Photographer's stamp in black ink: "Man Ray/ Paris". (M#33- check Text Entry notes for stamp details)
Titled and dated in photographer's hand in graphite on print verso: "Jules Pascin 1923". Initialed in unknown hand: "TTR".
Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment
Man Ray: The Paris Years, VMFA, October 30, 2021 – February 21, 2022

Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.