Wood engraving, 1925. 83x116 mm; 3 1/4x4 5/8 inches, wide margins. Artist's proof. Signed, dated and inscribed "Epreuve d'essai" in pencil, lower margin. A very good impression of this extremely scarce print.
Foujita (1886-1968) was born in Tokyo and studied art in Japan before moving to Paris in 1913. Soon after his arrival in Paris, he met Amedeo Modigliani, Jules Pascin, Chaim Soutine and Fernand Léger and became friends with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, each of whom influenced his developing modernist style. Foujita was a prolific and popular painter in Paris through the mid-20th century; as a printmaker, he worked mainly in etching but also made color woodcuts and wood engravings which recall his earlier, traditional artistic training in Japan in the early 1900s.
