In 1892 they moved to Bucharest. When he was an adolescent Pascin left home, giving up the comfortable life in order to travel the world and become an artist He first went to Vienna and then to Munich, where he collaborated on the satirical paper Simplicissimus – an experience which transformed young Pinkas into the mature Pascin. In 1905 Pascin went to Paris and in 1914 to New York, where he acquired United States citizenship. He became the perfect example of ‘Internationalism’, as Pierre Mac Orlan has written.

Self-portrait
Having hobnobbed in cafes of the old and new worlds with painters of every school, Pascin was most fond of sojourning in Paris. Dressed as a dandy, he became a notorious figure in Montparnasse and Montmartre. There, in the midst of the murkiness of the demi-monde, he depicted women sitting or lying on dusty sofas in ‘dubious’ settings. A supernatural atmosphere bathes his prostitutes, with their short legs and vague eyes. Alone or in pairs, they look like prostrate or passive little girls killing time – almost chaste, as the beautiful women painted by the nineteenth century masters he so very much admired. Often, one finds a