The Japanese lacquerer Seizô Sugawara (1884-1937) is considered the essential link in the teaching of Japanese lacquer art in France at the beginning of the 20th century. If his name had gone down in history as the master of the designer Eileen Gray and the copperware maker Jean Dunand, the whole story of his life had been forgotten. Where and when was he born? What was the story of his family? Where had he studied lacquer art? When and why had he come to France? When had he met Gray? How did their lacquer workshop work during their twenty years of collaboration? After the closure of their workshop, what had become of them?

This scientific biography, with more than 700 footnotes, reconstructs Sugawara's life in support of numerous unpublished sources: his youth in Japan, the reasons for his arrival in France and his work for the goldsmith Parisian Lucien Gaillard, the life he led in the arts capital with his Japanese expatriate friends, the operation of the lacquer workshop that Gray opened with him and the many lacquer techniques he mastered.

In the light of new information and several lacquered works rediscovered and published for the first time, this book offers a new analysis of creations in Gray lacquer and presents the work of sculptor-lacquerer of Sugawara.

This edition is abundantly illustrated with old and unpublished photographs with many portraits of the lacquerer, portraits of a group of Japanese artists settled in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. It also contains an unknown portrait of Eileen Gray, views of her studio around 1920 and numerous photographs of lacquered works.

Among the artists, craftsmen, merchants, collectors, institutions and places which are either cited, analyzed or photographed in the book, the reader will find the names of: Joseph Brummer, Damia, Jacques Doucet, Jean Dunand, Foujita, Yûzô Fujikawa, Loïe Fuller, Lucien Gaillard, Eileen Gray, Katsu Hamanaka, Shôkichi Hatake, Ichizô Hashimoto, Tetsujirô Hosaka, Kichizô Inagaki, Keishichi Ishiguro, Sadaji Kakehi, Coutaro Kamoura or Kawamura, Takeshirô Kanokogi, Icchô Kawanobe, Yoshi Kino-Outi, Eyre de Lanux, Kôkichi Maejima, Ukichi Maruyama, Juliette Mathieu Lévy known as Suzanne Talbot, Tetsuya Mizunoya, Kishû Morikawa, Jôkichi Naïto, Tamezô Oosumi, Katsumi Ousuda, Marie Paule Pomaret, Marthe Régnier, Auguste Rodin, baron Henri de Rothschild, baron Jirôhachi Satsuma, Koûn Takamura, Kaiteki Toda, Seifû Tsuda, Nobutarô Tsujimura, Sanzô Wada, Ryô Yanagi, Sotarô Yasui ; Sakata (Yamagata prefecture in Japan), Tôkyô Fine Arts School, Salon des Artistes décorateurs, rue du Théâtre (Paris), rue de Lota (Paris), galerie de la Renaissance, galerie Jean Désert, Cercle japonais, galerie Zivy (Paris), Chantilly, Vaux-de-Cernay.

An art historian, the author worked for several years in an auction house in Paris. Specialist of many decorators active in Paris in the years 1900-1930, she endeavors to find new archives in order to deepen the knowledge of this artistic period in France. This biography is his first publication. She is currently preparing future works on major figures from the Art Deco period.