Fenollosa, Ernest Francisco (1853-1908)

US orientalist and art historian. While teaching in Tokyo, he studied Japanese culture. He was oriental art curator at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, before returning to Tokyo as professor of English. His major work is Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art (1911).

He was born in Salem, Massachusetts. During his first spell in Tokyo, he taught political economy and philosophy and he took the Buddhist name Tei-Shin and the Japanese name Kano Yeitan Masanobu. He became the USA's leading orientalist and spent his last years writing and lecturing. His literary executor, Ezra Pound, edited a number of his works posthumously.