The Camps

Roger Shimomura, artist

born 1939

The Camps, 2015

Portfolio/Series title: Nisei Trilogy

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: Rives BFK™ paper; lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 380 x 610 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 14 15/16 x 24 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 470 x 685 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 18 1/2 x 26 15/16 in

Credit line: Gift of the artist

Accession number: 2019.0008.03

On display: Long Ellis Gallery

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Images

Label texts

Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani

Japanese American artist Roger Shimomura first met Mirikitani in Washington Square Park, where Mirikitani displayed his art across from NYU’s Grey Art Museum. “I knew Jimmy before anybody,” Shimomura recalled. “Every time I went to New York, he would be in Washington Square.” The two artists connected over their shared experience of wartime incarceration— Shimomura’s family at Minidoka and Mirikitani at Tule Lake. Both transformed these histories of displacement into art confronting identity, racism, and the legacy of incarceration.

Staging Shimomura

From the portfolio colophon:
“Nisei Trilogy is a three-print suite dedicated to the ‘Nisei,’ secondgeneration Japanese Americans. Despite being American by birthright, the Nisei were denied their constitutional rights and placed in concentration camps for the duration of World War II. While incarcerated, the Nisei men were asked to volunteer for combat duty in Europe. As the 442nd regimental combat team,
they went on the become the most decorated unit for its size in the history of the United Stated military…As the Nisei population diminishes each year, future generations of Japanese Americans will be historically bereft, without an authentic appreciation of all the examples set by the Nisei.”

Staging Shimomura