Arthur Okamura (February 24, 1932 - July 10, 2009) was an American artist, working in screen printing, drawing and painting. He lived in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

, and was Professor Emeritus at the

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in Sa ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. His work is in the permanent collections at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

in New York, and the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

. He is associated with the

San Francisco Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watt ...

. He illustrated numerous works of literature and poetry, published a book on games and toys for children, and created illustrations for the TV movie ''

The People The ''Sunday People'' is a British tabloid Sunday newspaper. It was founded as ''The People'' on 16 October 1881. At one point owned by Odhams Press, The ''People'' was acquired along with Odhams by the Mirror Group in 1961, along with the ...

''.

Early life

Okamura was born in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

, on February 24, 1932. Okamura was an American of Japanese descent. During World War II, as a child, Okamura and his family were relocated to the

Granada War Relocation Center 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 ...

in southeast

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. As a result of Executive Order 9066, the United States government forced the relocation of many American residents of Japanese ancestry to a Japanese American internment camp.

Education

Okamura attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1950–54,

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...

in 1954, and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

in 1951, 1953 and 1957. He moved to California after his university studies, living in San Francisco, then the

artist colony An art colony, also known as an artists' colony, can be defined two ways. Its most liberal description refers to the organic congregation of artists in towns, villages and rural areas, often drawn by areas of natural beauty, the prior existence o ...

Bolinas Bolinas is an unincorporated coastal community and census-designated place in Marin County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,483. It is located on the California coast, approximately (straight line dist ...

Career

He taught at the California College of the Arts for over 30 years, retiring in 1997. He died July 10, 2009 in Bolinas.

Exhibitions

His first solo exhibition was in 1953, at the Frank Ryan Gallery, in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He has had exhibits at the Oakland Museum of Art (1959), 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 a ...

(1962), and the

(1968). In addition to being in the aforementioned permanent collections, his work is in the collections of the Legion of Honor, the Oakland Museum, the Stanford University Collection, and the California College of the Arts. He had numerous solo and group or joint exhibits over the last 50 years. Catalogs of his exhibits have been published. He is represented by the Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco.

Bibliography

*''1234567890'', by Arthur Okamura and

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...

Shambhala Publications Shambhala Publications is an independent publishing company based in Boulder, Colorado. According to the company, it specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, the society, and the planet". Man ...

, 1971 biographical information on Okamura/Creeley
/ref> *''Calm and Clear'', by Lama Nipham, translated by

Tarthang Tulku Tarthang Tulku () (born 1934) is a Tibetan teacher ( lama) who introduced the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism into the United States, where he works to preserve the art and culture of Tibet. He oversees various projects including Dharma P ...

, cover and illustrations by Arthur Okamura. Berkeley,

Dharma Publishing Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for '' ...

, 1973 *''Just Space: Poems, 1979-1989'', by

Joanne Kyger Joanne Kyger (November 19, 1934 – March 22, 2017) was an American poet. The author of over 30 books of poetry and prose, Kyger was associated with the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beat Generation, Black Mountain, and the New ...

, illustrated by Arthur Okamura. David R. Godine, 1991 *''Ten Poems by Issa'',

Robert Bly Robert Elwood Bly (December 23, 1926 – November 21, 2021) was an American poet, essayist, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement. His best-known prose book is '' Iron John: A Book About Men'' (1990), which spent 62 weeks on ' ...

, translator. illustrated by Arthur Okamura. Floating Island Publications, 1992 *''The Paper Propeller, The Spinning Quarter, The Jumping Frog +38 Other Amazing Tricks You Can Do with Stuff Lying Around the House'', written and illustrated by Arthur Okamura. Bolinas, CA; Shelter Publications. *''The Healing Spirit of Haiku'', David H. Rosen and Joel Weishaus, Illustrated by Arthur Okamura. New York:

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

North Atlantic Books North Atlantic Books is a non-profit, independent publisher based in Berkeley, California, United States. Distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services, North Atlantic Books is a mission-driven social justice-oriented publisher. Founded ...

(2004)

Awards

*1951

Neysa McMein Neysa Moran McMein (born Marjorie Frances McMein; January 24, 1888 – May 12, 1949) was an American illustrator and portrait painter who studied at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and Art Students League of New York. She began her ca ...

Purchase Award, Whitney Museum of Art *1957 Marin Cahn Award, Art Institute of Chicago *1960 Schwagacher-Frey Award, San Francisco Museum of Art *1976 Purchase Prize,

San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cali ...

References

External links

pictures of Okamura in his studio, 2006Commonweal Newsletter, December 2007Haikuworld.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Okamura, Arthur 1932 births 2009 deaths American artists of Japanese descent Japanese-American internees American printmakers Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area American illustrators Writers who illustrated their own writing Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Yale School of Art alumni University of Chicago alumni People from Bolinas, California People from Long Beach, California