Julius Mordecai Pincas (1885–1930) was a Bulgarian who set out on a wild and adventurous journey to Vienna, the Habsburg capital. After art school, he set off for Munich and Berlin before settling down in Paris in 1905 and painting under the name of Pascin. Over 1907 to 1930, Pascin exhibited in Berlin, Paris, and New York at fairs such as the 1911 Berlin Secession in 1911 and the 1913 Indepéndants and Autumn salons as well as at Bernheim and other leading private galleries. Indeed, he spent most of his time travelling across Algeria, Cuba, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, and the USA where he gained citizenship in 1920. He hanged himself on June 2, 1930, only a year before major retrospective exhibitions of his works in New York and Paris. Today, Pascin still stands out as a “bad boy”. His canvases are as turbulent as his lifestyle; full of parties and places the affluent patronize but never mention in polite society – those brothels and cabarets where scantily clad ladies hosted the pillars of society. Pascin was as brilliant at the easel as the drawing board but was all too easily overlooked, perhaps because he lived in the shadow of contemporaries Picasso, Modigliani, and many, many more.
