Hermine David

Jules Pascin · 1907

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

66 × 55.2 cm (26 × 21 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Modernism

Painted in the early years of Jules Pascin's time in Paris, this intimate portrait of Hermine David reveals the tender, searching quality that would come to define his best figure work. Pascin — born Julius Mordecai Pincas in Bulgaria in 1885 — arrived in Paris in 1905 and quickly absorbed the fluid draughtsmanship of Toulouse-Lautrec and the warm chromatic sensibility of the Fauves. In this 1907 work, his brushwork is loose yet purposeful, building the figure through layered, translucent strokes that give the skin a fragile luminosity. The composition is unpretentious and direct, placing the subject close to the picture plane in a way that feels more like a private study than a formal portrait. Hermine David was herself a painter and a long-standing companion to Pascin; the two eventually married in 1918, and she remained a recurring presence in his work throughout his career. A hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas captures what print cannot — the physical weight of the paint, the subtle texture of individual brushstrokes, and the warm tonal shifts that make Pascin's flesh tones so distinctive. Each reproduction is made by hand, one painting at a time.