On the Ferry

Jules Pascin was the quintessential bohemian, a well-loved artist who left the family grain business for a rootless life in the cosmopolitan cities of the world. He drew incessantly and reportedly could, if he had to be discreet, do a sketch while keeping his paper and pencil in his pocket. Pascin made this drawing on his first trip to New York, arriving on the Lusitania in 1914. Although he traveled in the elite art circles of Munich, Berlin and Paris, his fresh, instinctive compositions remained uniquely his own.