[4][5] Originally from the city of Ruse, the Pincas family was one of the wealthiest in Vidin; they bought and exported wheat, rice, maize and sunflower.

Pascin worked briefly for his father's firm at the age of fifteen, but also frequented a local brothel where he made his earliest drawings.

[3][10] Despite his social life, Pascin created thousands of watercolors and sketches, plus drawings and caricatures that he sold to various newspapers and magazines.

[10] Pascin would visit the Louvre, taking a special interest in the masters of the 18th century especially Greuze, Boucher, Watteau and Fragonard.

Dissatisfied with his slow progress in the new medium, he studied the art of drawing at the Académie Colarossi, and painted copies after the masters in the Louvre.

[3] Pascin relocated to London at the outbreak of World War I to avoid service in the Bulgarian army and left for the United States on October 3, 1914.

Pascin frequented nightclubs, and met artists such as Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Gaston Lachaise and Guy Pène du Bois,[9] but most of his time in America was spent traveling throughout the South.

In September 1920, Pascin became a naturalized United States citizen, with support from Alfred Stieglitz and Maurice Sterne,[3] but returned to Paris soon afterward.

Always in his bowler hat, he was a witty presence, along with his good friend Constant Detré,[19] at Le Dôme Café, Jockey-Club de Paris, and the other haunts of the area's bohemian society.

Famous as the host of numerous large parties in his flat, whenever he was invited elsewhere for dinner, he arrived with as many bottles of wine as he could carry.

He frequently led a large group of friends on summer picnics beside the river Marne, where their excursions lasted all afternoon.

According to his biographer, Georges Charensol: Scarcely had he chosen his table at the Dôme or the Sélect than he would be surrounded by five or six friends; at nine o'clock, when we got up to dinner, we would be 20 in all, and later in the evening, when we decided to go up to Montmartre to Charlotte Gardelle's or the Princess Marfa's—where Pascin loved to take the place of the drummer in the jazz band—he had to provide for 10 taxis.

[21] His experience as a satirical draftsman and his knowledge of German expressionism are evident in his early works, where some portraits evoke Otto Dix or Grosz with a less incisive and less cruel touch.

He painted with indulgence the underworld "of the girls," using a pearly touch, light with iridescent colors, in shades of gray, pink, ocher, and violet-blue.

"[D]riven to the wall by his own legend", according to art critic Gaston Diehl, he died by suicide at the age of 45 on the eve of a prestigious solo show.