Chiura Obata

Japanese/American, (1885–1975)

Chiura Obata was born in Okayama, Japan in 1885. At the age of seve he began learning the art of sumi-e, Japanese ink and brush painting. At the age of seventeen, he emigrated to the United States. He began a member of the Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley starting in 1932. His employment was interrrupted by World War II, when in 1942, he was interned at the Tanforan detention center. During this time he and fellow artists created an art school for those in the detention center. In the same year, he was moved to the Topas War Relocation Center in Topaz, Utah. He founded and directed the Topaz Art School. After a year in the internment camps, Obata was released and his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri. After the war, Obata returned to UC-Berkeley and taught until 1953. He died in Berkeley, California in 1975.