Chiura Obata

I was watching PBS's National Parks series these days. Today has an episode about artists. Chiura Obata was a painter who came from Japan and fell in love in the nature of the American west coast. He became a professor of UC Berkerly and painted hundreds of paintings of Yosemite, the High Sierra and sequoia. Days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Obata like hundreds of thousand Japanese immigrants are thrown into internment camps. He taught fellow Japanese children and adults painting and sketching along with his own painting and sketching in the camp. Art becomes an antidote for the harsh endurance.

Tapaz war relocation center by moonlight (1943)

Tapaz Mountains (1943)

Glorious Struggle (1965) Sumi on Silk, 36 X 22 in

His grand daughter compile his works resulted from his days in the internment camps and published this Tapaz Moon. Paperback available in Amazon.com.