This Thursday, Adeline Hazan, mayor of the French city of Reims, will receive an exceptional donation of 663 works by Franco-Japanese artist Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita. According to AFP, the donation, which is estimated at €1.7 million ($2.2 million), comprises 15 paintings, among them a self-portrait from 1922 and a depiction of Chaim Soutine’s studio. The works also include stained-glass windows, ceramics, and many preparatory drawings.
Foujita’s career took off during the Roaring Twenties, when he moved to Paris and became friends with other up-and-coming artists such as Picasso and Modigliani. A painter, illustrator, engraver, and even a sometime filmmaker, Foujita left instructions in his will that his works should be kept together in one place, and his ten heirs have respected his wishes. When it opens in 2018, the new Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims will have the largest collection of works by Foujita in Europe.
Why Reims? It may seem surprising that this famous artist, who was born in Tokyo in 1886, who lived in Paris but also in New York, Japan, China, and South America, and who died in Switzerland in 1968, decided to leave his work to this small city in the Champagne region.
The reason behind the choice is a religious one. While visiting the Saint Remi Basilica in Reims one day with a friend, Foujita felt himself called to the Catholic faith. He soon converted and was baptized in the Gothic cathedral in Reims. His godfather, René Lalou, was the director of the Mumm Champagne company. Foujita, who took the name Léonard after being baptized, had the Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix chapel built in Reims, which he decorated himself and where he is now buried next to his wife.
The signing of the act of donation by the artist’s heirs will be followed by a mass on Good Friday under the crucifixion fresco that the artist himself painted.