Kenjiro Nomura (artist)
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Kenjiro Nomura (1896–1956) was a
Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
painter. Immigrating to the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
from
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
as a boy, he became a well-known artist in the
Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
in the 1920s and 30s. In 1942, during the
Second World War 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 opposin ...
and after the signing of
Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...
, Nomura and his family were incarcerated in the
Minidoka Relocation Center Minidoka National Historic Site is a National Historic Site in the western United States. It commemorates the more than 13,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center during the Second World War.
. Sketches and paintings he made there over the next three years continue to be exhibited as an important record of the Japanese-American wartime experience. Nomura eventually moved into abstract painting. He died in
Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
, in 1956.


Early life and education

Kenjiro Nomura was born in 1896 in
Gifu is a city located in the south-central portion of Gifu Prefecture, Japan, and serves as the prefectural capital. The city has played an important role in Japan's history because of its location in the middle of the country. During the Sengoku ...
,
Gifu Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,991,390 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture to the northwest, F ...
, Japan. In 1907 his family immigrated to the United States, settling in Tacoma, Washington. When he was sixteen his parents returned to Japan; Kenjiro opted to stay in the U.S. In 1916 Nomura moved to Seattle, working for a shopkeeper in the city's bustling Japantown / Nihonmachi neighborhood (later known as the International District). Within a year he began working as an apprentice sign painter (most likely with Burgira Hirayama, the only known professional sign painter in Japantown at that time), and began taking lessons in the studio of Fokko Tadama, a prominent art teacher who instructed Nomura in the basic techniques of
Western Art The art of Europe, or Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period between the Paleol ...
. A
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
-
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n immigrant himself, Tadama often worked with Japanese-American students.


Early career: 1920s and 30s

In 1922, after five years of study with Tadama, Nomura had some of his paintings selected by the Seattle Fine Art Society for inclusion in its ''Annual Exhibition of the Artists of the Pacific Northwest''. The same year he and a friend, Show Toda, opened a sign painting business in Japantown. The following year they moved it to Sixth Ave. and Main St., in the heart of Nihonmachi, where it would remain for the next thirteen years. Combining their names, they called it Noto Sign Co. It soon became a successful business and a studio and hang-out for artists, as well as Nomura and Toda's home. Notable Nikkei artists who worked and socialized there at various times included Takuichi Fujii,
George Tsutakawa George Tsutakawa (February 22, 1910 – December 18, 1997) was an American painter and sculptor best known for his avant-garde bronze fountain designs. Born in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, he was raised in both the United States ...
,
Paul Horiuchi Paul Horiuchi (April 12, 1906 – August 29, 1999) was an American painter and collagist. He was born in Oishi, Japan, and studied art from an early age. After immigrating to the United States in his early teens, he spent many years as a railro ...
, and
Kamekichi Tokita Kamekichi Tokita (1897–1948) was a Japanese American painter and diarist. He immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1919, and lived in Seattle, Washington's Japantown/Nihonmachi district (later known as the Seattle Chinatown-Internation ...
. After Toda got married and moved on in 1928, Tokita took his place as Nomura's business partner. The two men, who had met around 1921, would become inextricably linked, their very different ways of painting similar subjects providing contrast and context to each other's work. Long after their deaths their paintings would continue to be exhibited side by side. In the 1920s Seattle's arts community was growing with an energy that continued even through the early years of the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. Nomura and his peers regularly appeared in the Seattle Art Institute's 'Northwest Annuals', and when the
Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...
opened in 1933, its first solo exhibition was of Nomura's work (both SAI and SAM, under the directorship of Dr. Richard Fuller, were descendants of the Seattle Fine Art Society). His work was also shown at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
's
Henry Art Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...
, and, as his reputation spread, at the
California Palace of the Legion of Honor The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also ...
in
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and the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in
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. Nomura married in 1928, at which time he moved out of the Noto building. He and his wife Fumiko had a son, George, in 1930. In 1935 Nomura was invited to join the Group of Twelve, a cooperative gathering of progressive artists including
Kenneth Callahan Kenneth Callahan (1905–1986) was an American painter and muralist who served as a catalyst for Northwest artists in the mid-20th century through his own painting, his work as assistant director and curator at the Seattle Art Museum, and his wr ...
and Ambrose Patterson. The Group's exhibitions proved popular, and several were held over the next couple of years. Despite his successes as an artist, the deepening Depression was taking its toll. In 1933 he was happy to be paid $38.25 a week to produce several paintings for the federal Public Works of Art Project, some of which were shown at the
Corcoran Gallery The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
in Washington, D.C. In 1936, lack of business forced Nomura to close down Noto Sign Co.; he and Fumiko were eventually able to reestablish themselves by managing a dry-cleaning business in Seattle's University District.


Wartime

Japanese immigrants in general were subject to discriminatory U.S. laws which barred them from owning property or becoming naturalized citizens. Racist groups periodically began campaigns for the removal of the so-called "
Yellow Peril The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racist, racial color terminology for race, color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East Asia, East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a ...
". The bombing of
Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
on December 7, 1941, led to intense suspicion of disloyalty and even sabotage on the part of Japanese-Americans.
Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...
enabled the U.S. military to remove all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, including the
Nisei is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called ). The are considered the second generation, ...
, native-born U.S. citizens who in some cases spoke little or no Japanese. They were to be placed in relocation centers - for all intents and purposes, internment camps - far inland. On April 12, 1942, Kenjiro Nomura and his family were transported to the Puyallup Assembly Center, where they were held for three months. They were then moved to the
Minidoka Relocation Center Minidoka National Historic Site is a National Historic Site in the western United States. It commemorates the more than 13,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center during the Second World War.
in
Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
, where they were held for three years. Nomura worked as a sign painter in the camp, which allowed him access to paint and brushes. Painting or sketching on whatever materials were available, he created a moving visual record of life in detention. Very few of his internment camp paintings utilized the blended, dark colors which gave a heavy tone to much of his previous work. Some of the works are as small as 5" by 8". One is rendered in crayon on construction paper. Although straightforward and representational, the subjects he chose give a greater insight to what internment was like. ''The Main Gate'', with the
Puyallup Fair The Washington State Fair, formerly the Puyallup Fair, is the largest single attraction held annually in the U.S. state of Washington. It continually ranks in the top ten largest fairs in the United States and includes agricultural and pastora ...
's main gate building in the background, shows the fenced-off area and shed where visitors from the outside world could meet with the camp's residents. A military policeman, gun at his side, can be seen leaning against the visiting area's back fence. ''Guard Tower'', painted during the winter of 1942-'43, shows a dark and ominous winter sky and a plane of snowy ground broken by a line of barbed wire fence. ''The Laundry and Sanitation Building'', one of the few paintings to feature any people, shows a lone woman with a basket walking to the laundry building in a scene heavy with dull browns and greens.


Later years

When the Nomuras returned to Seattle after the war, they had trouble finding work, and Nomura's ailing wife committed suicide in 1946. Nomura did not paint until 1947, when another local Japanese artist,
Paul Horiuchi Paul Horiuchi (April 12, 1906 – August 29, 1999) was an American painter and collagist. He was born in Oishi, Japan, and studied art from an early age. After immigrating to the United States in his early teens, he spent many years as a railro ...
, helped him to recover from his losses and return to art. His experiments with abstraction attracted considerable interest, including exhibition at Seattle's Zoë Dusanne Gallery. Nomura died in Seattle in 1956. ''Painting Seattle: Kamekichi Tokita and Kenjiro Nomura'' was a major exhibition at the
Seattle Asian Art Museum The Seattle Asian Art Museum (often abbreviated to SAAM) is a museum of History of Asian art, Asian art at Volunteer Park, Seattle, Volunteer Park in the Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington, Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington (state) ...
in 2011–12. ''Kenjiro Nomura: An Artist's View of the Japanese American Internment'' was shown at the
Japanese American National Museum The is located in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. Founded in 1992, it is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affil ...
in 1997,Japanese American National Museum, press release, 1997; http://www.janm.org/exhibits/nomura/ and has had several other exhibitions.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nomura, Kenjiro 1896 births 1956 deaths Japanese emigrants to the United States People from Gifu Painters from Washington (state) American artists of Japanese descent Japanese-American internees Artists from Seattle 20th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American male artists