Tsuguharu Foujita

In 1913, 27-year-old Tsuguharu Foujita arrived at Montparnasse in Paris and entered the European art scene. Three years earlier, in 1910, he graduated from the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo. In Paris, he soon became friends with artists such as Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and Henri Matisse, and met Amadeo Modigliani, Pascin, Chaim Soutine and Fernand Léger, among many others. He was highly eccentric, with a haircut modeled on an Egyptian statue, a wristwatch tattooed on his wrist, rings in his ears, a fondness for wearing Greek-inspired tunics, and often wore a lampshade on his head instead of a hat.
Tsuguharu Foujita was one of the most famous artists of the 1920s in Montparnasse and, at the height of his career, was more highly regarded than Picasso (the French government bought one of Foujita's works as early as 1926, almost 25 years before they acquired anything from Picasso). Foujita's first studio was at 5 Rue Delambre in Montparnasse. Foujita is one of the few artists in Montparnasse who made a lot of money at a young age. Together with Fernand Léger, he designed sets for famous theater productions and costumes for Rolf de Marée's “Ballet Suédois”.
In 1933, Foujita returned to Japan where he was welcomed as a great celebrity. He is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century in Japan. Influenced by Japanese woodcuts and the Japanese pictorial tradition, he created a distinctive mode of expression using a technique that was unusual at the time.