Rarely seen Leonard Tsuguoharu Foujita sells at Sotherbys

One of the lesser know Modernist Leonard Tsuguoharu Foujita painting JEUNE FILLE À LA CORBEILLE DE FRUITS sold at Sotherby's Impressionist and Modern Day Art Sale in New York
on Wed, 03 Nov 10, for $350,000 USD. The piece came from a private collection.

There is a lot to like about this picture by Foujita- the smart foreshortening of the figure and the bench; the subtle coloring being most dramatic with the fuit; the position of the hand holding the peach?; the oversized head; the direct look; the imperfect mouth; the oddness of the background behind the sitter being in a sense framed by wood.

About Foujita
Leonard Tsuguoharu Foujita (November 27, 1886 – January 29, 1968) was a painter and printmaker born in Tokyo, Japan who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings.

In 1910 when he was twenty-four years old 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 Léger and became friends with Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Foujita claimed in his memoir that he met Picasso less than a week after his arrival, but a recent biographer, relying on letters Foujita sent to his first wife in Japan, clearly shows that it was several months until he met Picasso. He also took dance lessons from the legendary Isadora Duncan [1].

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.

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.[2] {From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuguharu_Foujita}

posted by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)