Emiko Nakano (1925–1990) was an American

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

painter, printmaker, fiber artist, and fashion Illustrator.

Biography

Emiko Nakano was born on July 4, 1925 in Sacramento, California; her parents were immigrants from Japan. She was raised in Chico,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. When Nakano was in high school in 1939, the United States entered

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Following the signing of Executive Order 9066, her family was placed internment camp for three years because they were of Japanese ancestry; first at the

Merced Assembly Center The Merced Assembly Center was one of sixteen temporary assembly centers hastily constructed in the wake of Executive Order 9066 to incarcerate those of Japanese ancestry beginning in the spring of 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor and prio ...

, followed by

Camp Amache The Amache National Historic Site, formally the Granada War Relocation Center but known to the internees as Camp Amache, was a concentration camp for Japanese Americans in Prowers County, Colorado. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor o ...

. When they were released from the camps, the family moved to Richmond, California. From fall 1947 until the summer of 1951, Nakano attended the

California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

(now known as San Francisco Art Institute). She studied with

Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follow ...

, James Budd Dixon, Edward Corbett,

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...

, Hassel Smith, and

Elmer Bischoff Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991) was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post- World War II generation of artists who started as abstract p ...

. In summer 1949, she attended the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

; and in the summer 1952, she attended

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

. In the 1950s, Nakano worked as a freelance fashion illustrator. She died on March 7, 1990 at the age of 64, in Richmond, California. Her work is in the public museum collection at the Monterey Museum of Art.

Exhibitions

A select list of exhibitions, by Nakano:

Solo exhibitions

* 2014–2015: ''Cross the Bridge: Emiko Nakano – Abstract Landscapes'', Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California

Group exhibitions

* 1952: ''San Francisco Women Artists Annual Exhibition'', San Francisco Museum of Art (now known as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), San Francisco, California * 1952: ''American Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints'', the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York City, New York *1955: '' São Paulo Art Biennial'', São Paulo, Brazil * 1955: ''Emiko Nakano and Clayton Pinkerton'',

Richmond Art Center Richmond Art Center is a nonprofit arts organization based in Richmond, California, founded in 1936. History In 1936, Richmond-resident Hazel Salmi began teaching classes under the Emergency Education Program (EEP) of the Works Progress Adminis ...

, Richmond, California * 1955: ''Bay Region Painting and Sculpture'', San Francisco Museum of Art (now known as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), San Francisco, California

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nakano, Emiko 1925 births 1990 deaths 20th-century American women artists San Francisco Art Institute alumni Abstract expressionist artists People from Richmond, California Artists from San Francisco American women painters American women printmakers American people of Japanese descent Japanese-American internees American artists of Japanese descent People from Chico, California