Jacques Villon was a French cubist painter and printmaker. Born Gaston Emile 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: In 1894, he and his brother Raymond moved to the Montmartre area of 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. In 1903 he helped organize the drawing section of the first Salon d'Automne in Paris. In 1904-1905 he studied art at the Académie Julian.
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| Birthdate: | July 31, 1875 |
| Birthplace: | Damville |
| Date of death: | June 9, 1963 |