Hermine David - Infinite Women

This bio has been republished from Mina Loy: Navigating the Avant-Garde. See below for full attribution.

Born: 19 April 1886, France
Died: 1 December 1970
Country most active: France
Also known as: NA

Often diminished to a footnote in the life of her husband, the painter Jules Pascin, Hermine David was an artist in her own right who gained recognition in the early twentieth century. She worked in a variety of media and styles, including watercolor, pastel, charcoal, drypoint, and lithography. She was creating 18th-century style ivory miniatures by 1907 (Dupouy 11) and turned to illustrating books in the 1920s, including works by Marcel Proust, Francois Mauriac, and Paul Verlaine (Kohan).
David was born on April 19, 1886 in Paris, France. She began studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1902 and later attended l’Académie Julian, becoming a regular exhibitor at the Salon des Femmes Peintres and Sculpteurs (“Hermine David”). Her paintings are often Post-Impressionist, many of them being landscapes done in watercolor, pastel, and charcoal.
David and Pascin were both members of the School of Paris artists’ group. The two met in 1907 and lived together “intermittently” in “the sort of free union that the French called a collage or ménage a la colle” (Burke 102) that Mina Loy could not fathom. Loy and Pascin had become friends the year before, and David and Loy soon became close as well, sharing their sorrows and enjoying parties, dinners, and other events in the Paris area for much of their lives.
David left France in the spring of 1915 when she followed Pascin to America on board the Lusitania (Werner 91). The couple lived together in New York from 1915 to 1920 and finally married. In 1918, Pascin decided that since “the grocer would not deliver provisions to those living in sin . . . the formalities of getting married were less of a nuisance than searching for a new apartment and a more tolerant grocer” (Werner 101). On September 30, 1920, Pascin gained American citizenship, and David automatically became an American citizen as well.
They returned to Paris the same year, at which point David began illustrating books. She had her first solo exhibition at Galerie Berthe Weill in 1922 and was given the Legion of Honor award in 1932 (“Hermine David”). Pascin finally left her in 1927 for Lucy Krogh, the mutual friend with whom he’d been having an affair off and on since she modelled for him in 1909. Pascin ultimately committed suicide in June of 1930, leaving a note written in blood to Krogh. Loy’s poem, “Jules Pascin,” was written on his death.
Without Pascin, David continued her art career, especially book illustration, and was also drawn to Christian art, “working in a post-impressionist, Art Deco style, full of textured, sinuous line work, rich tonal variations, and naif, elongated forms, reminiscent of El Greco” (Kohan). She produced art almost until her death in Bry-sur-Marne, France on December 1, 1970. Having lived through her Pascin grief, she resumed her friendship with Lucy Krohg after his death and produced a multitude of paintings, prints, miniatures, and book illustrations that were lauded by critics and the public alike.