untitled (art in incarceration)

Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, artist

1920–2012

untitled (art in incarceration), date unknown

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: collage; ballpoint pen; photocopying; paper

Dimensions:
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 29 x 21.5 cm
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 36.2 x 28.58 x 2.54 cm

Credit line: Collection of Linda Hattendorf, Taos, New Mexico

Accession number: EL2024.132

On display: Long Ellis Gallery

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Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani

In this collage, Mirikitani reimagines scenes of artistic life within World War II incarceration camps. Drawing from Allen H. Eaton’s book Beauty Behind Barbed Wire (1952), he honors the resilience of those who transformed scarcity into beauty through art. Mirikitani’s inscriptions link him to Chiura Obata, the distinguished Californiabased Nihonga painter who founded an art school at Topaz Relocation Camp in Utah and whose luminous landscape seen in Passing Rain inspired Mirikitani. Though Obata was never at Tule Lake, Mirikitani’s identification with him—and their indirect link through Obata’s student and ink artist Masako “Kōho” Yamamoto (b. 1922)—reflects a deep sense of kinship, remembrance, and shared commitment to artistic perseverance amid adversity.