Mary Koga
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Mary Koga (née Mary Hisako Ishii, August 10, 1920 – June 8, 2001) 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 Asia ...
photographer and social worker in Chicago.


Life

Koga was born in
Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
, on August 10, 1920, and had been an avid photographer since she was a child. She concentrated on social work, however, and received a BA in 1942 from the
University of California at 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 univ ...
and a Master's degree in 1947 from the
University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice, formerly called the School of Social Service Administration (SSA), is the school of social work at the University of Chicago. History The school was founded in 1903 by minister and so ...
. During
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 opposin ...
, following the signing of Executive Order 9066, she was incarcerated in the
internment camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
at
Tule Lake Tule Lake ( ) is an intermittent lake covering an area of , long and across, in northeastern Siskiyou County and northwestern Modoc County in California, along the border with Oregon. Geography Tule Lake is fed by the Lost River. The eleva ...
for a year because of her Japanese
ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
. From 1947 to 1969, she worked in the field of social work in Chicago, starting out as a case worker and eventually teaching as an Assistant Professor for Field Work at the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, 1960–1969. Koga then concentrated on photography, studied at the
IIT Institute of Design Institute of Design (ID) at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), founded as the New Bauhaus, is a graduate school teaching systemic, human-centered design. History The Institute of Design at Illinois Tech is a school of design ...
and received a MFA from the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...
in 1973. She then went on to teach photography at
Columbia College Chicago Columbia College Chicago is a Private college, private art college in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, it has 5,928https://about.colum.edu/effectiveness/pdf/spring-2021-student-profile.pdf students pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergra ...
for seven years. Mary Koga died in Chicago on June 8, 2001.


Photography

Koga's photographic work consists mainly of three distinct series. The ''Floral Forms'' series was begun in 1972 and went on into the 1990s. Done in both color as well as black and white, the images are delicate close-ups of mostly single flower heads, artfully arranged in the studio with tightly controlled
lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...
. On occasion, she over exposed and used
multiple exposure In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be ide ...
to emphasise the structure and/or color. Comparison has been made with the flower paintings of
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Amer ...
. In parallel, between 1972 and 1980, Koga went to rural
Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
to work on the series ''The
Hutterites Hutterites (german: link=no, Hutterer), also called Hutterian Brethren (German: ), are a communal ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligious branch of Anabaptism, Anabaptists, who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Refor ...
''. Her images show the members of the isolated religious community, who in many cases have been photographed for the first time, with great openness, sympathy and a touch of humor. While highly constructed and posed, her
portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...
s capture people who are happy within their surroundings, yet emphasising how different and alien they are within modern society. The chaste lifestyle is not only palpable from the quaint, old fashioned dress the Hutterites wear but also in interiors and
still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...
images of sober displays of kettles or bread. Koga's third big project is closely linked to both, her ethnicity and her former concern with social work. She concentrated on the elderly first generation of Japanese immigrants, her parents' generation, in black and white as well as color photos. Done over several decades from the 1970s to the 1990s, the ''Portrait of the
Issei is a Japanese-language term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the Japanese people who were the first generation to immigrate there. are born in Japan; their children born in the new country are ...
in
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
'' series is much more relaxed than the Hutterite portraits. Koga was obviously at ease with these people, and documented their twilight years at the day care facility and the Senior Citizens Work Center of the
Japanese American Service Committee Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
(JASC) and at Heiwa Terrace, a Japanese American senior residence, both located in Chicago.


References


Mary Koga Photograph Collection

Holdings at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago

Holdings at the Art Institute of Chicago
* Gerhard Bissell, ''Koga, Mary'', in: ''
Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon Thieme-Becker is a German biographical dictionary of artists. Thieme-Becker The dictionary was begun under the editorship of Ulrich Thieme (1865–1922) (volumes one to fifteen) and Felix Becker (1864–1928) (volumes one to four). It was complet ...
'', vol. 80, 2013 (in preparation). {{DEFAULTSORT:Koga, Mary 1920 births 2001 deaths 20th-century American photographers American people of Japanese descent Japanese-American internees University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration alumni 20th-century American women photographers