A painter and printmaker, Jacques Villon was known for his Cubist-style works, and is especially noted by art historians for his creation of a purely graphic language for Cubism. He first came to the attention of the American public when his work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show, which introduced modernism to the United Sates. All of his work sold at this exhibition.

He was from a cultured family in the Normandy region of France, and was much influenced by his maternal grandfather, Emile Nicolle, who gave him early artistic training. Villon was born with the name of Gaston Emile Duchamp, and was the older brother of artists Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp and Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti.&...