Volume 54, Number 4 · March 15, 2007
Dressing for Success
By Ian Buruma
Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita, the Artist Caught Between East and West
by Phyllis Birnbaum
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 331 pp., $27.50
At the height of his fame, in 1920s Paris, the Japanese painter Foujita, or Fou Fou to his friends, would draw up at the café Le Dôme in a canary-yellow chauffeur-driven Ballot touring car with a little bronze Rodin bust on the hood. The limo was a birthday gift from Foujita to his then-twenty-one-year-old mistress and later wife, 'Youki' Badoud, who, dressed to the nines, would sweep into the café with her husband, as both acknowledged the waves of his adoring fans. Fou Fou, with his large gold earrings, his fringed haircut, his tattooed wristwatch, his round spectacles, and his outlandish dress, was so famous in Paris that department stores displayed mannequins of the painter in their windows. Society ladies lined up to be portrayed by Foujita. He partied with Picasso, Alexander Calder, and Kees van Dongen. His were the most talked about, most outrageously imaginative costumes worn at the legendary arts balls. Foujita even did judo demonstrations at the Paris Opéra.
Review, 3630 words
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