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Lot Essay
The present work will be included in the forthcoming supplement to the Foujita catalogue raisonné, currently being prepared by Sylvie Buisson.
Executed in 1928, the same year of the Autopotrait au chat (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, fig. 1), this self-portrait is a manifesto of the artist's self-awareness as an icon of the Parisian art world in the late 1920s. At 42, Foujita was at the height of his success, and took the capital by storm with his eccentric looks, emphasised by his stylish glasses, extravagant costumes, trademark hair-cut and huge earrings. He indulged in his self-representation in one of his most accomplished series of canvasses and works on paper - almost monochromatic compositions, in the sepia and grey hues of early photography. Conscious that his original public persona was as important as his art, Foujita conveyed in his Autoportraits of the late 1920s all the powerful ambiguity of his westernised Japanese iconographies and style.
Executed in 1928, the same year of the Autopotrait au chat (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, fig. 1), this self-portrait is a manifesto of the artist's self-awareness as an icon of the Parisian art world in the late 1920s. At 42, Foujita was at the height of his success, and took the capital by storm with his eccentric looks, emphasised by his stylish glasses, extravagant costumes, trademark hair-cut and huge earrings. He indulged in his self-representation in one of his most accomplished series of canvasses and works on paper - almost monochromatic compositions, in the sepia and grey hues of early photography. Conscious that his original public persona was as important as his art, Foujita conveyed in his Autoportraits of the late 1920s all the powerful ambiguity of his westernised Japanese iconographies and style.