Sotheby’s to Offer Foujita Lexicon from Lewis Collection

Sotheby’s will present The Foujita Lexicon: Works from the Lewis Collection in Hong Kong on 28 September 2026, bringing together 15 works by Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita in its first dedicated single-artist auction in Asia. Estimated at HK$17.8 million to HK$26.5 million, or approximately US$2.3 million to US$3.45 million, the group spans six decades of the artist’s career.

A single collection traces six decades

The sale marks the 140th anniversary of Foujita’s birth and surveys his work across different periods, geographies and media. Sotheby’s describes the group as the most comprehensive offering of Foujita’s work yet presented at auction in Asia, reflecting more than three decades of collecting by the Lewis family.

Foujita became a distinctive figure in the School of Paris by combining Japanese and European artistic traditions within an immediately recognisable visual language. The collection follows that development through self-portraiture, figures, animals and other subjects associated with different phases of his career.

Mon portrait captures the Paris years

Among the highlights is Mon portrait, executed in 1924 in watercolour, pen and ink on silk and estimated at HK$800,000 to HK$1.2 million. Sotheby’s places the work at the height of Foujita’s Montparnasse period, when his bowl haircut, round spectacles and carefully constructed public persona had become closely associated with his identity as an artist.

The self-portrait combines objects referring to his Japanese heritage with possessions associated with his European life. Sotheby’s presents that combination as an early and particularly clear expression of the cultural synthesis that became central to Foujita’s practice.

Le rêve and Madeleine endormie add personal history

Le rêve (Hommage à La Fontaine), painted in New York in 1949, carries an estimate of HK$4 million to HK$6 million and is one of only four known works from the artist’s fox series of that period. The composition depicts a sleeping fox family and belongs to a brief but important phase as Foujita rebuilt his international reputation before returning to Paris.

Madeleine endormie has a different significance because it was the first Foujita acquired by the Lewis family, in 1992. Sotheby’s says that purchase began a collecting relationship with the artist that continued for decades and ultimately produced one of the most important private groups of his work.

Provenance and depth shape the sale

The auction follows Sotheby’s London sale of Masterpieces from The Lewis Collection, but narrows the focus from the breadth of the collection to the family’s sustained engagement with one artist. Bringing the 15 works together allows buyers to consider individual pictures within the wider chronology and collecting history from which they come.

For Superyacht Lifestyle, The Foujita Lexicon illustrates the role provenance and collecting depth can play alongside the reputation of the artist and quality of individual works. A group assembled over decades can become a collection in its own right, carrying a narrative that extends beyond the separate objects offered at auction.