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Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita, also known as
Fujita (藤田 嗣治,
November 27,
1886 -
January 29,
1968) was a painter and engraver born in
Tokyo, Japan who applied French oil techniques to Japanese-style
paintings.
In
1910 Foujita graduated from what is now the
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Three years
later he went to
Montparnasse in
Paris, France. When he arrived there, knowing nobody, he met
Amedeo Modigliani,
Pascin,
Chaim Soutine, and
Fernand Leger practically the same night and within a week
became friends with
Juan Gris,
Pablo Picasso and
Henri Matisse.
Foujita had his first studio at no. 5 rue Delambre in
Montparnasse where he became the envy of everyone when he eventually
made enough money to install a bathtub with hot running water. Many
models came over to Foujita's place to enjoy this luxury, among them
Man Ray's very liberated lover,
Kiki, who boldly posed for Foujita in the nude in the outdoor
courtyard. Another portrait of Kiki titled "Reclining Nude with
Toile de Jouy," shows her lying naked against an ivory-white
background. It was the sensation of Paris at the Salon d'Automne
in 1922, selling for more than 8,000 francs.
In March of 1917 in the café La Rotonde, Foujita was hit
by lightning in the form of a young lady by the name of Fernande
Barrey. At first, she totally ignored Foujita's efforts to engage
her in conversation. However, early the next morning, Foujita showed
up at Fernande's place with a blue corsage he'd made overnight.
Intrigued, she offered him a pot of tea and they were married 13
days later.
Within a few years, particularly after his 1918 exposition, he
achieved great fame as a painter of beautiful women and cats in a
very original technique. He is one of the few Montparnasse artists
who made a great deal of money in his early years. By 1925,
Tsuguharu Foujita had received the
Belgian Order of
King Leopold I and the French government awarded him the
Legion of Honor.
In 1918, a trip to the south of France was organized by the
Polish poet
Leopold Zborowski, who had the idea that his artist-friends
could sell pictures there to rich tourists. Foujita and his wife
went along as did Soutine, Modigliani with his lover,
Jeanne Hébuterne. The trip was not, however, a success and the
group had to survive on the advances that Foujita had obtained from
his Paris dealer. By the time the final reckoning arrived even those
funds had run out, and their landlord, ignoring their worthless
pieces of art, confiscated all their baggage in lieu of payment.
After the breakup of his third marriage, and his flight to
Brazil in 1931 (with his new love, Mady), Foujita traveled and
painted all over
Latin America, giving hugely successful exhibitions along the
way. In
Buenos Aires,
Argentina, 60,000 people attended his exhibition, and more than
10,000 queued up for his autograph. Two years later he was welcomed
back as a star to Japan where he stayed until 1939. His works can be
found in the Bridgestone Museum of Art and in the Museum of
Contemporary Art in
Tokyo, and more than 100 in the Hirano Masakichi Art Museum in
Akita.
His last major work was the decoration of a chapel in
Reims, France, which he completed in 1966, not long before his
death.
Tsuguharu Foujita died of
cancer on
January 29,
1968 in
Zürich,
Switzerland and was interred in the Cimetière de
Villiers-Le-Bacle,
Essonne departement,
France.
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