This group of six works by three prominent Japanese American artists—Chiura Obata, Tokio Ueyama, and Miné Okubo—expands LACMA’s collection of works by American artists of Asian descent. Based in California, each played an influential role in the development of American modernism, experimenting with innovative styles, subjects, and techniques. Working during the Exclusion Era (1882–1965), a period that witnessed the spread of anti-immigration and anti-Asian laws, all three artists were unjustly incarcerated during World War II following Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast. These six works stand as testaments to their artistic accomplishments and creative resiliency in the face of xenophobia and racial discrimination. As the first works by Obata, Ueyama, and Okubo to be purchased by LACMA, they offer a long-overdue opportunity to share and promote the legacies of these three influential Japanese American modernists, and will be featured in a forthcoming exhibition.
A leading interpreter of California’s landscape, Chiura Obata was born in Japan and immigrated to the United States in 1903. He settled in San Francisco, where he exhibited widely and established the influential East West Art Society. In 1927, he made a sketching trip to Yosemite, describing the visit as “the greatest harvest for my whole life and future in painting.” He later collaborated with a print workshop in Tokyo to create a series of 35 woodblocks after his watercolor sketches, including this impression of Eagle Peak Trail. Obata’s career was dramatically upended by World War II, when he was incarcerated at the Tanforan Assembly Center and the Central Utah Relocation Center, also known as Topaz. He resiliently continued to create art and build community, co-founding art schools in both camps. After the war ended, he painted landscapes on his journey home to California, such as Untitled (Cliff with Lone Tree), a remarkably fresh watercolor in which he combined soft, subtle washes with fluid, calligraphic lines.
Like Obata, Tokio Ueyama was born in Japan, immigrating to the United States in 1908. After studying in Philadelphia and in Europe, he settled in Los Angeles in 1922. In his early masterwork Creeping Shadows, he captured the enigmatic shadows that “creep” across Southern California’s verdant foothills in late afternoon—a brilliant study of the shifting effects of light, color, and atmospheric perspective. In 1926, the painting was exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art—LACMA’s precursor. Ueyama’s abilities as a colorist often manifested most brilliantly in early still lifes such as Untitled (Still Life with Persimmons). Here, the autumn fruits are painted in lush strokes of green and yellow, creating shimmering surface effects that elevate this humble tabletop composition into a powerful meditation on color and light. While incarcerated during World War II, Ueyama directed the art school at the Granada War Relocation Center in Colorado, and after the war he played a critical role in rebuilding the artistic community of L.A.’s Little Tokyo district.
A Nisei (or second-generation Japanese American), Miné Okubo experimented with a variety of styles, subjects, and techniques over her seven-decade career. Born in Riverside, California, she studied fresco and mural painting at the University of California, Berkeley. Untitled (Portrait Head) and Sunday Morning are characteristic of her early work and reveal the influence of Mexican modernism, notably the work of Diego Rivera. Painting with tempera, Okubo developed a highly personal color palette, building up her compositions with delicate hatching and cross hatching. Her female figures are undeniably modern, but the monumentality with which she rendered their forms gives them an air of durability and timelessness. During the war, Okubo was incarcerated at Topaz, where she taught art classes and continued to paint; in 1944, she moved to New York City, where she lived and worked until her death in 2001.
During our 39th annual Collectors Committee Weekend (April 26–27, 2025), members of LACMA's Collectors Committee generously helped the museum acquire six works of art spanning a breadth of eras and cultures. Read more about all the acquisitions.