Tsuguharu Foujita was a French painter and graphic artist of the Parisian school, originally from Japan. He received his art education at the Tokyo Higher School of Fine Arts. Having first arrived in Paris in 1913, he lived and worked in France for a long time, and in 1955 he received French citizenship. During his lifetime, he enjoyed wide international fame; Foujita’s personal exhibitions were held in many countries around the world.

He created his own style, combining in his work the techniques of Japanese painting and engraving with the traditions of European realism. His best known are nudes, numerous images of cats, portraits of women and children, and self-portraits. At the end of his life, he converted to Catholicism, taking the name “Leonard Foujita”, and painted pictures on religious themes.

He died of cancer in Zurich in 1968. During his lifetime, he received one of France’s most important awards, the Legion of Honor, and was posthumously awarded the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st class. The artist’s ashes are buried in Reims, in the so-called Fujita Chapel, which he designed and painted with his own hands at the age of 80. Reims also houses the world’s largest collection of his works.