La Mélancolique

In 1909 Pascin was known above all as a draughtsman. Since 1905 his drawings of cafés, brothels and street life had been appearing in Simplicissimus, the satirical weekly in Munich, and his contract with the magazine paid his way in Paris. Oil was still new to him. He had begun painting only around 1907, found the slow medium hard going, and those first years at the easel are said to have brought on bouts of real gloom.

This woman leaning on the back of a bentwood chair comes from that apprenticeship in paint, and he made her on a panel rather than on canvas.

The picture seems to have stayed close to Pascin's own circle for most of the century. It probably went straight from him to Lucy Krohg, the woman he loved, and it remained with her son, the Norwegian painter Guy Krohg, in Paris until at least 1984. The New York dealers Robert and Cheryl Fishko gave it to the museum in 2002.