Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita

Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita was born on the 27th of November in 1886. He was born in Tokyo, Japan.

He was a Japanese–French painter and printmaker. He used Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. He has been called "the most important Japanese artist working in the West during the 20th century".

His Book of Cats, published in New York by Covici Friede, 1930, with 20 etched plate drawings by Foujita, is one of the top 500 (in price) rare books ever sold, and is ranked by rare book dealers as "the most popular and desirable book on cats ever published".

In 1913, he moved to Paris France after having studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In Paris, he became friends with Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.

His life in Montparnasse is documented in several of his works, including the etching A la Rotonde or Café de la Rotonde of 1925/7, part of the Tableaux de Paris series published in 1929.

Foujita first married Tomiko Tokita in 1912, they divorced in 1916 when Foujita had already left for Paris.
In 1917, at a cafe in Paris Foujita met Fernande Barrey who he married within the month they met. This marriage also didn't work out and he became involved with Lucie Badoul, who he called the Rose Snow. They did not get married because she got involved with Robert Desnos.

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 Leopold and the French government awarded him the Legion of Honor.

When Foujita returned to France, he was converted to Catholicism in 1959 in Reims.
He died of cancer in Zurich Switzerland on the 29th of January in 1968. He was buried in France.