Jacques Villon
Jacques Villon (July 31, 1875 – June 9, 1963) was a French Cubist painter and printmaker.
Early life
Born Emile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France, he came from a prosperous and artistically inclined family. While he was a young man, his maternal grandfather Emile Nicolle, successful businessman and artist, taught him and his siblings.
Gaston Duchamp was the elder brother of:
Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918), sculptor
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), painter, sculptor and author
Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti (1889-1963), painter
In 1894, he and his brother Raymond moved to Montmartre in Paris. There, he studied law at the University of Paris but received his father's permission to study art on the condition that he continue studying law.
To distinguish himself from his siblings, Gaston Duchamp adopted the pseudonym of Jacques Villon as a tribute to the French medieval poet François Villon. In Montmartre, home to an expanding art community, Villon lost interest in the pursuit of a legal career, and for the next 10 years he worked in graphic media, contributing cartoons and illustrations to Parisian newspapers as well as drawing color posters. His work appeared in the satirical weekly Le Courrier français.