Tsuguharu Foujita

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Tsuguharu Foujita, photographed by Jean Agélou , around 1917

Tsuguharu-Léonard Foujita ( Japanese 藤田 嗣 治 , Fujita Tsuguharu ; born November 27, 1886 in Tokyo , † January 29, 1968 in Zurich ) was a Japanese - French painter and graphic artist .

Life

Tsuguharu Foujita was the son of a general in the Imperial Japanese Army . He studied for three years at the renowned Tokyo University of the Arts . In 1910 Foujita received several medals and prizes for his work, even the Tennō Mutsuhito (Meiji) (1852-1912) acquired a picture of him. On a trip to Korea in 1911, he was asked to portray the Empress Sunjeong (1894–1966).

During his stay in England and France , the eccentric Foujita discovered European contemporary art and moved to Montparnasse in Paris in 1913 . There he met Kenzo Okada , with whom he painted and studied painting together for a while. Within a very short time he made the acquaintance of the city's most famous artists, including Georges Braque , Henri Matisse , Fernand Léger , Jean Cocteau , Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso . He soon became close friends with Amedeo Modigliani . In 1917 Foujita had his first exhibition, in which he showed his unusual work for Paris, a mixture of traditional Japanese and contemporary European art. To avoid the German bombs , Foujita moved with his wife to Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1918 . As early as 1924 he was one of the most important exhibitors at the Salon d'Automne . In the same year he became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo. A little later he was selected to decorate the Japanese home of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris . From the mid-1920s, Foujita's work was shown in every major exhibition in Paris, Berlin , London , New York City and Chicago . From 1931 he traveled to Latin America and came to Japan in 1933 as a celebrated artist. During this time he also painted pictures that glorified the Japanese war. After the war he returned to Paris, in 1950 he took French citizenship and converted to Catholicism .

Tsuguharu Léonard Foujita died on January 29, 1968 in Zurich of complications from lung cancer . He was temporarily buried in the North Cemetery in Reims until his widow Kimiyo had his remains transferred to Villiers-le-Bâcle near Paris a few years later and buried in the local cemetery. Foujita found his final resting place for the time being in 2003 in accordance with his wishes in the chapel he designed in Reims, where Kimiyo Foujita was also buried after her death in 2009.

Foujita and the women

Jean Agélou : Fernande Barrey, around 1910–1917

In 1917 Foujita met the painter and model Fernande Barrey (1892–1960) in Café de la Rotonde , and it was love at first sight. They married two weeks later at the Montmartre registry office . The two had a harmonious marriage until Fernande had an affair with his cousin Koyanagi. The marriage ended in divorce in 1928. In the following years he had several mistresses , including Kiki (1901-1953), called La rein de Montparnasse , and his future wife (1929), the Belgian artist , Lucie Badoud (1903-1964), whom he called Youki . In 1930, the surrealist writer and friend, Robert Desnos (1900–1945) stayed with the couple. Soon there was a ménage à trois . The following year, Foujita separated from his wife, who later married Desnos. He himself married the model Madeleine Lequeux for the third time in the same year.

The Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix chapel

Foujita Chapel

One of his most important works is the Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix chapel in Reims . It was built from 1965 under the direction of the architect Maurice Clauzier. The stained glass windows are by Charles Marq, who also made the Chagall windows in the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Reims. The chapel was consecrated on October 1, 1966.

It is mainly decorated with frescoes depicting the life of Jesus. Foujita used this technique for the first time. In the cul-de-four vaults, he creates an arc from the Middle Ages to the bombing of Hiroshima in the macabre dances . Foujita is buried here - right next to the "Resurrection" fresco.

Awards (selection)

Museums

In Japan, works by Foujita et al. a. can be seen at the Masakichi Hirano Museum of Fine Art in Akita. For the main hall of the museum he painted a large mural (3.65 × 20.5 m) depicting the four seasons.

literature

  • Sylvie Buisson and Dominique Buisson: Leonard-Tsuguharu Foujita. ACR Edition, 2001, ISBN 2-86770-149-X
  • Phyllis Birnbaum: Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita - the Artist Caught Between East and West, Faber & Faber, 2006, ISBN 0-571-21179-8
  • Louis La Volpe: Miss Fernande - First Lady of Erotica, Motion Publishing, New York 2005, ISBN 1-4116-5324-6
  • Foujita - Le maître japonais de Montparnasse, 2004
  • Japan Foundation (Ed.): Japanese Painting in the Western Style, 19th and 20th Centuries. Exhibition catalog, Cologne, 1985.

Web links

Commons : Tsuguharu Foujita  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sylvie Buisson, Dominique Buisson: Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita, sa vie, son œuvre; (Vol. 1), ACR Edition, Paris 2001 ISBN 978-2-86770-149-8 , p. 329
  2. ↑ La veuve de Foujita disparue, l'héritage du peintre demeure Le Parisien, April 24, 2009 , accessed on December 28, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Foujita, Tsuguharu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Foujita, Tsuguharu-Léonard; 藤田 嗣 治 (Japanese); Fujita, Tsuguharu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese-French painter and printmaker
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1968
Place of death Zurich