Miné Okubo
Encyclopedia
Miné Okubo a pioneering Nisei
woman, artist and writer, created approximately 2000 drawings and sketches of her experiences while confined along with approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans in US internment camps
following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
. Initially assigned to the Tanforan Assembly Center
, a former horse racetrack in San Bruno, California, a few miles south of San Francisco, she and her brother were later sent to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah.
Following her confinement, Miné Okubo relocated to New York and published a book of her experiences, Citizen 13660, which documented, without bitterness, the indignities, struggle and sparse humor of daily life for internees at the camps. Named for the number assigned to her family unit, the book contains over two hundred of her pen and ink sketches accompanied by brief explanatory text. Published in 1946 and in print for more than 50 years since, the book provides a unique perspective on the historical record of the internment.
Continuing her career as an artist, Okubo remained in New York where her work later earned numerous awards and brought national recognition. At the time of her death in February 2001, she was living in her canvas-filled apartment near Greenwich Village
, in Manhattan
.
, Miné Okubo attended Poly High School
, Riverside Junior College
, and later received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley, class of 1938. A recipient of the Bertha Taussig Memorial Traveling Fellowship in 1938, Okubo spent two years traveling in France and Italy where she continued her development as an artist. While in Paris, she studied under the famous early 20th century avant-garde painter Fernand Léger
.
From 1939 to 1942, following her return to American from Europe, Okubo created several murals under commission by the Federal Art Project. She was also commissioned by the United States Army to create mosaic and fresco murals. She collaborated with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera
in San Francisco for the Works Progress Administration
. Prior to the order for internment, while living in Berkeley, CA, Miné had been creating mosaics for Fort Ord and the Servicemen's Hospitality House in Oakland, CA. Miné obtained a special permit, an exemption to the 5-mile travel limit from home, necessary to perform her work in Oakland.
Executive Order 9066
, Miné along with her brother, Toku Okubo, who had been a student at Berkeley, were relocated to the Japanese internment camp of Tanforan. Living in a converted horse stall furnished with army cots, they adjusted to the twice-daily roll calls, curfews and the lack of privacy.
Following six months of confinement at Tanforan, Miné and her brother were transferred to the Topaz Relocation Center, Utah. Almost never without her sketchpad, Miné recorded her images of drama, humiliation and everyday struggle. While interned, Okubo taught art to children and later entered a magazine contest with a her drawing of a camp guard.
When Fortune magazine
learned of her talent, the firm hired her as an illustrator, an arrangement that allowed her to leave the camp after a two-year confinement and relocate to New York City. Prior to her relocation to New York, Okubo had shipped a crate of her belongings to Fortune magazine's offices.
Okubo's art is found in solo and group exhibitions at museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and has been shown in many cities. In 1948, designer Henry Dreyfuss
had commissioned Okubo to create a large Mediterranean map mural for the main foyer of a new fleet of ships called "4 Aces" for American Export Lines. — later pictured in a Fortune magazine article, Modern Art Goes to Sea.
Miné Okubo testified in New York before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
following its establishment in 1981. Citizen 13660 — by then widely reviewed and recognized as an important reference book on the internment — was presented to the commission by Okubo.
Her well-known book has been used in courses taught by teachers throughout the country for topics including female artists, artists in war, and ethnic artists. Becoming nationally recognized, Okubo received numerous awards, among which included the 1984 American Book Award
for Citizen 13660. In 1991, the Women's Caucus for Art awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award, and she is listed in Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary edited by Hyung-chan Kim.
Following her death in 2001, Okubo's various artworks and papers were transferred to Riverside Community College District
, a primary beneficiary of the estate, for preservation of the collection. The transferred items include approximately 25 banker boxes of reference materials, photographs, slides, books, writings, letters, printed material, and a host of paintings, many unmounted as either loose canvas or rolled.
Okubo became the subject of a play entitled, "Miné: A Name For Herself", written by Riverside author Mary H. Curtin and Theresa Larkin. The play, interwoven with reminiscences about Okubo's later life as a New York artist, portrays her experiences in the camps of Tanforan and Topaz and shares her artwork and aesthetic principles with the audience.
On February 22, 2006, Riverside Community College honored the memory of its noted alumna when it announced that a street on the campus had been renamed Miné Okubo Avenue.
As of August 2009, the school was working to catalog, archive and curate its collection of Okubo's personal writings, sketches, and paintings.
Miné Okubo - preface to the 1983 edition of Citizen 13660
"To me, life and art are one and the same, for the key lies in one's knowledge of people and life. In art one is trying to express it in the simplest imaginative way, as in the art of past civilizations, for beauty and truth are the only two things which live timeless and ageless."
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Nisei
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...
woman, artist and writer, created approximately 2000 drawings and sketches of her experiences while confined along with approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans in US internment camps
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. Initially assigned to the Tanforan Assembly Center
Tanforan Racetrack
Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California was a thoroughbred horse racing facility that operated from September 4, 1899 to July 31, 1964. Tanforan was constructed to serve a clientele from the nearby city of San Francisco. The facility was named after Toribio Tanforan, the grandson-in-law of Jose...
, a former horse racetrack in San Bruno, California, a few miles south of San Francisco, she and her brother were later sent to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah.
Following her confinement, Miné Okubo relocated to New York and published a book of her experiences, Citizen 13660, which documented, without bitterness, the indignities, struggle and sparse humor of daily life for internees at the camps. Named for the number assigned to her family unit, the book contains over two hundred of her pen and ink sketches accompanied by brief explanatory text. Published in 1946 and in print for more than 50 years since, the book provides a unique perspective on the historical record of the internment.
Continuing her career as an artist, Okubo remained in New York where her work later earned numerous awards and brought national recognition. At the time of her death in February 2001, she was living in her canvas-filled apartment near Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Early life
Born in Riverside, CaliforniaRiverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...
, Miné Okubo attended Poly High School
Riverside Polytechnic High School
Riverside Polytechnic High School is a four-year public high school in Riverside, California, United States, and part of the Riverside Unified School District...
, Riverside Junior College
Riverside Community College
Riverside City College, or RCC, is a community college located in Riverside, California, United States. The college is part of the Riverside Community College District, as well as the larger California Community Colleges System.-History:...
, and later received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley, class of 1938. A recipient of the Bertha Taussig Memorial Traveling Fellowship in 1938, Okubo spent two years traveling in France and Italy where she continued her development as an artist. While in Paris, she studied under the famous early 20th century avant-garde painter Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
.
From 1939 to 1942, following her return to American from Europe, Okubo created several murals under commission by the Federal Art Project. She was also commissioned by the United States Army to create mosaic and fresco murals. She collaborated with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
in San Francisco for the Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
. Prior to the order for internment, while living in Berkeley, CA, Miné had been creating mosaics for Fort Ord and the Servicemen's Hospitality House in Oakland, CA. Miné obtained a special permit, an exemption to the 5-mile travel limit from home, necessary to perform her work in Oakland.
Internment
On April 24, 1942, within five months of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and two months after Roosevelt'sFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066
United States Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones...
, Miné along with her brother, Toku Okubo, who had been a student at Berkeley, were relocated to the Japanese internment camp of Tanforan. Living in a converted horse stall furnished with army cots, they adjusted to the twice-daily roll calls, curfews and the lack of privacy.
Following six months of confinement at Tanforan, Miné and her brother were transferred to the Topaz Relocation Center, Utah. Almost never without her sketchpad, Miné recorded her images of drama, humiliation and everyday struggle. While interned, Okubo taught art to children and later entered a magazine contest with a her drawing of a camp guard.
When Fortune magazine
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
learned of her talent, the firm hired her as an illustrator, an arrangement that allowed her to leave the camp after a two-year confinement and relocate to New York City. Prior to her relocation to New York, Okubo had shipped a crate of her belongings to Fortune magazine's offices.
Later life and death
Okubo collaborated on the April 1944 special issue of Fortune magazine's article on Japan, a work that included a small number of her drawings — the first time any of her work had been published. She remained in New York, continuing her career as an artist, for the next half century. She worked as a freelance illustrator and later resumed painting full time.Okubo's art is found in solo and group exhibitions at museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and has been shown in many cities. In 1948, designer Henry Dreyfuss
Henry Dreyfuss
Henry Dreyfuss was an American industrial designer.-Career:Dreyfuss was a native of Brooklyn, New York. As one of the celebrity industrial designers of the 1930s and 1940s, Dreyfuss dramatically improved the look, feel, and usability of dozens of consumer products...
had commissioned Okubo to create a large Mediterranean map mural for the main foyer of a new fleet of ships called "4 Aces" for American Export Lines. — later pictured in a Fortune magazine article, Modern Art Goes to Sea.
Miné Okubo testified in New York before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians was a group of people appointed by the U.S. Congress to conduct an official governmental study of Executive Order 9066, related wartime orders and their impact on Japanese Americans in the West and Alaska Natives in the Pribilof...
following its establishment in 1981. Citizen 13660 — by then widely reviewed and recognized as an important reference book on the internment — was presented to the commission by Okubo.
Her well-known book has been used in courses taught by teachers throughout the country for topics including female artists, artists in war, and ethnic artists. Becoming nationally recognized, Okubo received numerous awards, among which included the 1984 American Book Award
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
for Citizen 13660. In 1991, the Women's Caucus for Art awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award, and she is listed in Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary edited by Hyung-chan Kim.
Following her death in 2001, Okubo's various artworks and papers were transferred to Riverside Community College District
Riverside Community College District
The Riverside Community College District, or RCCD, is the community college district serving Riverside, California, United States, and neighboring cities. It is part of the California Community Colleges System...
, a primary beneficiary of the estate, for preservation of the collection. The transferred items include approximately 25 banker boxes of reference materials, photographs, slides, books, writings, letters, printed material, and a host of paintings, many unmounted as either loose canvas or rolled.
Okubo became the subject of a play entitled, "Miné: A Name For Herself", written by Riverside author Mary H. Curtin and Theresa Larkin. The play, interwoven with reminiscences about Okubo's later life as a New York artist, portrays her experiences in the camps of Tanforan and Topaz and shares her artwork and aesthetic principles with the audience.
On February 22, 2006, Riverside Community College honored the memory of its noted alumna when it announced that a street on the campus had been renamed Miné Okubo Avenue.
As of August 2009, the school was working to catalog, archive and curate its collection of Okubo's personal writings, sketches, and paintings.
Quotes
"In the camps, first at Tanforan and then at Topaz in Utah, I had the opportunity to study the human race from the cradle to the grave, and to see what happens to people when reduced to one status and one condition. Cameras and photographs were not permitted in the camps, so I recorded everything in sketches, drawings and paintings."Miné Okubo - preface to the 1983 edition of Citizen 13660
"To me, life and art are one and the same, for the key lies in one's knowledge of people and life. In art one is trying to express it in the simplest imaginative way, as in the art of past civilizations, for beauty and truth are the only two things which live timeless and ageless."
See also
- The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
- Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, CA State Univ., Los Angeles, Theresa Larkin
- Voices from the Gaps, Department of English, University of Minnesota
- Books:
- Citizen 13660 Book cover graphic and content preview.
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- Mediterranean mural map photo on , formerly cruise liner
