Léonard-Tsuguharu FOUJITA (1886-1968)

Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968) Japanese expatriate painter who applied French oil techniques to Japanese-style paintings. He was a member of the School of Paris, a group of now-famous artists who resided in the Montparnasse district of that city. In 1910 Fujita graduated from what is now the Tokyo University of the Arts. Three years later he went to Paris, where he became the friend of many of the great forerunners of modern Western art, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Chaim Soutine, and Amedeo Modigliani. He exhibited his works for the first time in Paris in 1917. A nude portrait of the model Kiki de Montparnasse set against an ivory background (Reclining Nude with Toile de Jouy) that he showed at the 1922 Salon d’Automne was a runaway success and led to a hugely lucrative decade for Fujita. He became known for his portraits, self-portraits, nudes, city scenes, and drawings and paintings of cats. He also published the limited edition A Book of Cats (1930), which included 20 drawings of cats and became a highly sought-after (and thus very valuable) art book. Fujita’s work is distinguished by his strong evocative line, an aesthetic that stemmed from his art training in Japan and was greatly admired by the Paris School artists. In 1931–32 Fujita traveled throughout Latin America and had a major exhibition of his work in Buenos Aires. During World War II he returned to Japan, where for many years he put his artistic talent to use as a war artist for the Japanese government, a decision that was criticized by his pacifist peers in the Japanese arts community, who accused him of using his art to promote the militarist actions of Japan. With a marred reputation in his home country, he traveled to the United States in 1949 and then returned to France in 1950 and stayed there for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1955 and being awarded the Legion of Honour in 1957. He was christened Léonard upon converting to Roman Catholicism in 1959. After his conversion, he turned to more-religious subjects. He also designed, built, and completed interior decoration (frescos and stained-glass windows) of a chapel (Chapel of Our Lady Queen of Peace, or the Fujita Chapel) in Reims, France, in 1966. He is buried outside the chapel. (ref.Naomi Blumberg)