Out of the Shadows.(Tsuguharu Foujita)

Tsuguharu Foujita, one of Japan's most celebrated artists abroad, wasn't happy at home. A fixture on the 1920s Paris cafe circuit, he was renowned almost as much for his tireless partying as for his sumptuous paintings of cats and women with pearly skin. The French honored him with prizes and commissions. But back home, his flashy behavior-- wearing women's kimonos and courting famous models--was much better known than his work. Even after he returned to Japan to paint military pictures during World War II, he was criticized for being a propagandist. He ultimately fled to Paris, where he converted to Roman Catholicism and died a French citizen in 1968. Japanese have never paid much attention to his paintings.

Now, 35 years after his death, two new books finally give Foujita his due. Published late last year by Kodansha in Tokyo, both address the most controversial chapter of his career: his war paintings. The first, a gorgeous coffee-table book titled "Leonard-Tsuguharu Foujita: The Great White," is a comprehensive survey, featuring color images of 155 works--including five major military paintings. The second, a biography by TV journalist Fumito Kondo titled "Tsuguharu Foujita, The Life of the Foreigner," is based largely on previously unpublished documents, as well as rare interviews with the artist's fifth (and last) wife, Kimiyo. It depicts an insecure genius who produced war paintings to gain the respect of his compatriots. Together, the books sketch a picture of a talented and complex man obsessed with his reputation.

Foujita occupies a unique place in Japan's modern art history. While most of his contemporaries simply copied the European masters, he established his own style, applying traditional Japanese techniques to Western oil painting. As a war artist, too, he stood out. From the mid- 1930s through 1945, Japan's military recruited hundreds of painters to glorify the war machine. Most of them were not trained to paint the huge canvases the Imperial Army wanted. But Foujita, who developed an interest in mural painting during a visit to Mexico, knew how to compose majestic tableaux. His "Battle on the Bank of the Haluha, Nomonhan," painted on a large oblong canvas with bright colors and fine, skillful brush strokes, depicts virile Japanese ...