Erotic Arf: Jules Pascin
Part of the design motif for the Arf series is to use “Initial Caps†by cartoonists, illustrators and fine artists to begin paragraphs. In Modern Arf we used letters by Basil Wolverton, Russell Patterson, Zim and Otto Soglow. Arf Museum has letters by Picasso to Rube Goldberg. Jules Pascin’s initial letters accompany the chapter “The Erotic Arf of Reamer Keller.†Click on the M for a slideshow of some Pascin’s letters that didn’t make the Arf cut.
(click for a slideshow of erotic letters)
Born in 1885 the eighth of eleven children, Jules liked to take his sketchbook to the local brothels in Bulgaria. This embarrassed his old man who demanded he change his name from Pincas to Pascin. Jules eventually moved to Paris where he continued the on site approach to art at the Parisian houses of ill-repute. While developing his fine art career Pascin contributed cartoons to the humor magazines Jugend and Simpliccimus. In 1930 after attending an opening of his works at the Galerie Georges Petit Pascin returned to his studio and took his own life by hanging. The Paris galleries were all closed the next day in memoriam. Click on the image below for a slideshow of Pascin’s work.
— C. Yoe (in the funny papers)
