Of Paris, of Love, of Art, of Cats and Poetry and of Death.

December 28, 2015 3:38 PM

NSFW - Lucie Badoud, model and muse a well off orphan was inspired by Guillaume Apollinaire's novel La Femme Assise and went to Paris. In 1924 now known as Youki - snow rose, she received on her 21st birthday from Foujita, the japanese painter, a big, yellow Ballot with a Basque chauffeur.
The car's body was by Saoutchik and the radiator was capped with a bronze by Rodin; The Man With a Broken Nose.

Foujita painted and had affairs with many of the Montparnasse models of the day as his apartment had that great rarity then, a bath.
Nina Hamnett was one and Kiki de Montmartre another. (Previous).
Foujita was famous not only for his nudes but for paintings of Cats which he adored (Pinterest).
A rare copy of his 1930 Book of cats was recently estimated at $60k - 80k.
Although Youki and Foujita married in 1929 she still slept occasionally with the great Surrealist Poet Robert Desnos and in the same year Foujita tatooed them both and then in 1931 ran away with Mady Dormans. The following year Youki married Desnos who shortly afterwards wrote The Secret Book for Youki and Other Poems.
Arrested in 1944 he wrote to Youki from Buchenwald.
Desnos last poem from Terezina Concentration camp.

posted by adamvasco (4 comments total)

Thanks for this--I am interested in the period, but have never heard of Foujita. There's a lot to follow up here.
posted by librosegretti at 8:08 PM on December 28, 2015

librosegretti, a fun introduction is Kiki's Paris: Artists and Lovers 1900-1930.
posted by adamvasco at 5:41 AM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Foujita is great; I have a reproduction of this wonderful painting. Thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 7:30 AM on December 29, 2015

The enigmatic Girl In The Park with her funny looking cat.

Robert Desnos was the most talented writer/poet out of the whole original Surrealist gang.
posted by ovvl at 9:24 PM on December 29, 2015