Heritage through Art: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Artists This May
Throughout history, Asian/Pacific Americans have demonstrated resilience, courage, and perseverance in the face of adversity and discrimination. From the early immigrants who journeyed to the United States in search of better opportunities to the generations who have fought for civil rights and social justice, Asian/Pacific Americans have made significant contributions to shaping the country we know today. Their stories of resilience and strength serve as a powerful reminder of the enduring spirit of the human experience and the importance of standing up for justice and equality for all.
*** As we commemorate this important month, let's reflect upon famous artists of Asian/Pacific American heritage descent....
Chiura Obata (1885–1975)
Born in Okayama Prefecture in Japan and eventually based in Berkeley, California, Chiura Obata was an art teacher and accomplished visual artist before he was interred by the U.S. government in response to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. His vivid paintings of natural landscapes—using watercolors and inks on silk and paper—captured a rich variety of American wilderness scenes, especially the mountains in California. Obata taught thousands of students, including children he was detained with at the Tanforan Racetrack and in Topaz, Utah. A sweeping exhibition of Obata’s work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2020 was critically acclaimed but interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
https://amer...a-obata-27393
Miyoko Ito (1918–1983)
Miyoko Ito was born and raised in Berkeley, California, save for the five artistically influential years she spent as a child with her family in Japan. Her college studies at UC Berkeley were interrupted by FDR’s Executive Order 9066; along with some 8,000 other Japanese-Americans living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ito was imprisoned in Tanforan, a holding center in San Bruno, and then transferred to Topaz in Utah.
She taught art classes in the camp alongside Chiura Obata, one of her professors at Berkeley.
https://matt...o-ito-02-2023
Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988)
Isamu Noguchi was a critically acclaimed sculptor who also created gardens, furniture, lighting fixtures, ceramics, and architecture. Born in Los Angeles to an Irish-American mother and a Japanese poet father, Noguchi began his art career when he worked briefly for the sculptor Gutzon Borglum and took sculpture classes while enrolled in Columbia’s premed program.
A major early achievement in Noguchi’s career was the large-scale sculpture commissioned for the Associated Press Building in Rockefeller Center unveiled in 1940.
https://www.noguchi.org/
Alfonso Ossorio (1916–1990)
Alfonso Ossorio remains overlooked and underappreciated in the annals of art history. His hugely varied output ranged from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism (he was close to Jackson Pollick), with potent influences from the art brut movement. He incorporated found objects in his work in adventurous and unusual ways.
Born in Manila to a wealthy family of Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino decent, Ossorio had the means to access and synthesize a wide array of aesthetic influences—but, remarkably, he remained artistically independent.
https://www....onso-ossorio/
Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011)
nspired by the Hawaiian landscape of her youth, Toshiko Takaezu was known for her graceful, varied clay vessels with glazes both vibrant and earthy. After studying ceramics at the University of Hawaii and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Takaezu traveled to Japan in 1955, where she worked with master Japanese potters Kaneshige Toyo and Shoji Hamada. She supplemented her immersion in traditional pottery by studying Zen Buddhism and Japanese tea ceremonies, both of which hugely influenced her work when she returned to the United States. She taught at the University of Wisconsin, the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Honolulu Academy of Art, and Princeton University before retiring from teaching in 1992 to become a studio artist.
https://www....about-toshiko
Ruth Asawa (1926–2013)Japanese-American postmodern artist and activist Ruth Asawa was born in 1926 in Norwalk, California, to immigrant farmers, the fourth of seven children. In 1942 she and most of her family were interned at Santa Anita Park for six months; while there, Asawa spent her time with Disney artists who were also interned. She was later moved to a camp in Arkansas, where she remained until September 1943. She studied to be an art teacher in Wisconsin and in North Carolina at Black Mountain College, then married and moved to San Francisco. Between 1954 and 1960, Asawa exhibited her sculptures, paintings, and drawings in solo and group shows at institutions like the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2020, the U.S. Postal Service released a series of stamps featuring Asawa’s fiber sculptures.
https://ruthasawa.com/
I. M. Pei (1917–2019)
One of the most revered architects in the world, and famous for designing the glass pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre museum, I. M. Pei was a modernist whose work spanned concert halls, hospitals, civic buildings, and many institutions.
Born in what is now Guangzhou, China, Pei received a bachelor of architecture degree from MIT in 1940 and then did graduate work at Harvard, where he studied under the German modernist Walter Gropius. Pei designed many museums, including the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, the Des Moines Art Center, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland—a job he initially turned down.
His work also included the John F. Kennedy library and the John Hancock Tower, both in Boston, and the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York.
https://www....artist/im-pei
C. C. Wang (1907–2003)
C. C. Wang was an artist and art collector who amassed one of the largest collections of historical and premodern Chinese paintings in the world. Born Wang Jiquan near Suzhou, China, Wang practiced calligraphy as a child and later studied landscape painting. He became a resident of New York in 1949, where he taught, consulted at Sotheby’s, and dealt in real estate and art. Pieces from Wang’s personal art collection are now held by major art institutions including the British Museum, Princeton University, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where his name graces a gallery, acquired more than five dozen paintings and works of calligraphy collected by Wang and held a special exhibition focused on them in 2000.
https://www....nese-painting
Yayoi Kusama (1929–)
Even if you don’t know Yayoi Kusama’s name, you’ve likely seen her colorful sculptures, highly Instagrammable mirror room installations, or items from her recent collaboration with luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton.
Kusama was born and raised in Matsumoto, Japan, to a family of agriculture merchants and trained at the Kyoto City University of the Arts for a year and a half. She gravitated toward the European and American avant-garde, painting abstract natural forms and then her signature polka dots on walls, floors, canvases, and household objects—as well as naked people. Kusama has spoken about how these dots came from her vivid hallucinations, which began at age 10.
Her soft sculpture work in the 1960s involved covering a variety of items with white phallic protrusions. She participated in the Venice Biennale in 1966 and 1993. After periods in France and the United States, Kusama returned to Japan and has been living voluntarily in a mental hospital in Tokyo since 1977. She is now one of the top-selling living female artists in the world, and her shows regularly break attendance records.
https://www..../yayoi-kusama