Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita

LÉONARD TSUGUHARU FOUJITA (Tokyo, 1886 - Zurich, 1968).
"Foujita, Madeleine Lequeux and her cat," 1938.
Photograph.
Signed (by the artist and his wife) and dedicated to Dr. de la Peña.
Measurements: 25.5 x 21 cm; 36 x 31 cm (frame).
This 1938 photograph is an exceptional testimony of one of the most intense and decisive moments in the life and career of Léonard Foujita. The image portrays the artist with his muse and sentimental companion, Madeleine Lequeux, in a period marked by exile, personal reinvention and the international expansion of his work. More than a simple portrait, the photograph condenses Foujita's complex identity: cosmopolitan artist, bridge between East and West, and central figure of Parisian bohemia between the wars.
Taken during the world tour that Foujita undertook from 1931 onwards, after the breakup with his third wife, Youki, and beset by fiscal problems in France, the artist is with Madeleine Lequeux, waitress at the famous cabaret Le Sphinx and vedette at the Casino de Paris, who appears here as a key figure of this vital stage. Madeleine was one of the artist's most iconic muses and the protagonist of some of his most famous works, such as Nu allongé (1932).
The presence of the cat, a recurring animal in Foujita's visual universe, adds an intimate and symbolic dimension. Cats, treated with an almost calligraphic delicacy, were for the artist emblems of elegance, mystery and refinement, and constitute one of the most appreciated and recognizable motifs of his production.
Born Tsuguharu Foujita and trained at the National University of Fine Arts in Tokyo, the artist settled in Paris in 1913, quickly integrating himself into the avant-garde School of Paris. Admired by figures such as Picasso, Modigliani and Chagall, Foujita developed an unmistakable style, characterized by the primacy of line over volume, the simplification of shadows and reliefs and the fusion of Japanese tradition. Works by Foujita are now in the collections of major international museums, including the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the national museums of Tokyo and Kyoto, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and numerous institutions in America and Europe.