From 7 March to 15 July 2018, the Musée Maillol in Paris presents an exhibition devoted to the Japanese artist, who became a naturalized French citizen, Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita. More than a hundred major works from public and private collections trace the exceptional nature of Foujita’s Roaring Twenties in Montparnasse, surrounded by his friends Modigliani, Zadkine, Soutine, Indenbaum, Kisling and Pascin. The exhibition focuses on Foujita’s first time in Paris, an extremely productive period between 1913 and 1931.

The exhibition tells the story of a unique career, that of an artist moving between two cultures. From Fujita’s early life in Japan, to his rise to fame and the emerging prominence of his work, the artist’s journey led him to the creation of his singular persona in the context of what could be referred to as the Parisian Roaring Twenties, directly translated from French to English as the ‘crazy years’. Foujita’s recurring themes – women, cats, still lifes, children and self-portraits – are typical of his artistic output. Foujita traveled through the major modernist currents without deviating from his own research framework, respectful of his Japanese roots and the classicism of the great Western masters. Foujita’s works are displayed alongside those of his studio neighbors, friends, admirers and inspirers, thereby offering an enriching dialogue that reveals the originality and complementary nature of a selection of artists grouped together with the name “École de Paris”.

Major works from leading institutions and museums, and around a hundred rare works from 45 private collections from Japan, the United States and Europe, work together to underscore Foujita’s extraordinary creative genius while inviting visitors to discover the intimate world of the remarkable artist. The two monumental diptychs, Combats I and II and Compositions au lion et au chien,1928, on loan from the Conseil Départemental de l’Essonne, are at the heart of the Années Folles and of this exhibition. The two seminal works demonstrate Foujita’s virtuoso skill and the impact that he had on his contemporaries. The two large-scale works, entrusted by Foujita to his wife Youki, were considered by the artist to be his most accomplished pieces. The exhibition demonstrates the talent of an artist impassioned by drawing who, following in the footsteps of his renowned predecessor Hokusai, wielded the paintbrush with talent and care. Foujita’s brushstrokes are unfailingly sure and his lines exemplarily calligraphic, using sumi (Japanese black ink) both on paper and in his oils. Whilst he gives color a secondary role, it nevertheless plays an essential part in heightening the beauty of the brushstrokes. The delicacy of gouache and watercolor fills the forms with flat tints, and the subtle transparencies of oil paint and his emblematic gold backgrounds evoke precious refineries.

Fifty years after Foujita’s death in 1968, the Musée Maillol honors the luminous and rare work of an artist who represented Japanese art forms and techniques in a way almost no other Montparnasse painters at the time did.