Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita--The Artist Caught Between East & West

I've always wondered about the single Japanese artist I've seen represented in European museum collections of early 20th century art. Who was this Foujita, what brought him to Europe, and what made him famous? Birnbaum's book tells all! The reader gets a sense of the splendid figure Foujita cut in Paris with his wild clothing and antics, but also the tight-rope he walked--trying to be Japanese enough to appeal to French buyers who loved Japonisme but also trying to find room for his original style. Birnbaum gives the sense of what her journey was like, taking the reader to Tokyo and Paris to talk with those who knew Foujita. A thoroughly enjoyable read!

As I read Phyllis Birnbaum's GLORY IN A LINE, I fought a sense of disbelief. How was it during my 1960s training in art and art history I had never heard or read this artist's name? In fact, if it had not been for Birnbaum's book or my perusal of Christie's or Sotheby's auction catalogs of only recent years, I might not have heard the name Foujita, still. But then, there is a fairy-tale sense of fantasy to this artist's life that may account for my incredulity. Birnbaum reveals in a humorous, sometimes deadpan, gathering-of-facts style, the artist's amazing and vivid life. Leaving it to the reader to configure, Birnbaum reports that Foujita constructed a fabulously successful social life, rather like, this reader supposes, an early modernist Andy Warhol. Despite being newly arrived in Paris, and knowing little French, the Japanese Foujita took to the Bohemian life-style like a duck to water. He displayed far more joie de vivre than any Left Bank artist (among his friends were Modigliani, Soutine and others). Then, after years of celebrity in Paris and more years traveling, the mercurial Foujita returned to Japan and virtually led the Japanese propagandist art program for World War II. Birnbaum has a knack for seting up scenes with great economy: meeting a Frenchman from his former deveil-may-care life in Paris, Foujita entered the room in full military garb,and greeted the visitor with a smile-less, stiff, formal bow,instead of shaking hands. Foujita, the perfect super-chameleon, or better yet--Zelig. Then, this reader thought perhaps it was because of his Japanese war art that Foujita was omitted from earlier art history texts, to be discussed only now. Indeed as of this writing, an American war movie about Iwo Jima told from the Japanese point of view is of recent release. With this in mind Birnbaum's book seems prescient. Read her book as an illuminating and entertaining biograpy of an incredible life, not as a moralizing document or an analysis of Foujita's work in the context of 20th Century art history.

I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF FOUJITA IN 'KI KI'S PARIS'. I LOVE THE BOHEMIAN PARIS OF THE 1920'S WITH ALL THOSE ARTISTS AND WRITERS CREATING AND PARTYING , THRIVING AND STARVING AND BASKING IN THE GLORY THAT WAS PARIS. PHYLLIS BIRNBAUM'S BOOK IS QUITE GOOD, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE DISCOVERED MORE ABOUT THE 'CREATIVE' MAN, THE GENIUS WITHIN. AND I WISH THERE HAD BEEN MORE PHOTOS OF HIS MANY ART WORKS. HE WAS QUITE A COMPLEX MAN AND THE BIO, WHILE INFORMATIVE, DOESN'T CAPTURE HIS CREATIVE PROCESS ENOUGH FOR ME. I DO RECOMMEND THE BOOK. I HOPE SOMEONE WILL WRITE ANOTHER BOOK OF JUST HIS PARIS YEARS.