Foujita's Return

Seventeen years ago there arrived in Paris a Japanese youth. He intended to stay one month. Not until last week did he get ready to go home. Meantime he had become a famed, much-pointed-out Parisian. "There goes Tsugoharu Foujita, the artist." His departure was such news in Paris that he felt sure his arrival in Japan would be a national event. Cockily chatting to reporters, last week, he compared the Tokyo he left with the Tokyo he would see:

". . . So long ago , there were about 25 automobiles in Tokyo and one poor airplane that managed to hop about three feet off the ground. Today there are more than 500.000 automobiles in Tokyo, and more than 10,000 airplanes will come to greet me, not to mention one thousand motorboats, all decorated."

Every few months smart Jap Artist Foujita is a Paris sensation. Not long ago he appeared in Deauville wearing leopard skin trousers, grey suspenders, no shirt and a high silk hat. "Temperament" murmured gullibles. "Poseur!" stormed the jealous. The smart Deauvillites voted him jocularly their "best dressed man."

In Japanese art circles the work of M. Foujita is considered French, mediocre. In France it is generally held to be Nipponesque, exotic, original. Foujita's women run the gamut from harlots to Madonnas, but all have catlike eyes. Asked last week about his acrobatic Parisian wife, callous

Foujita cried in her presence: "Oh, Yourki? She's learning how to wear a Japanese costume and how to bow. Never shall I be able to rid myself of that wife of mine there, I guess."