Chiura Obata (1885 - 1975)

Chiura Obata was born in 1885 in Okayama prefecture, Japan. At the age of 14 he went to Tokyo where he studied with Tanryo Murata, Kogyo Terasaki and Goho Hasimoto. In 1903 he moved to San Francisco. While working as an illustrator for the city's Japanese newspapers The New World and the Japanese American, Obata made on-site sketches of the San Francisco earthquake. He married Haruki Kohashi in 1912, and from 1915 to 1927 worked as an illustrator for Japan Magazine. He spent much of the 20's painting landscapes throughout California and helped establish the East West Art Society in San Francisco in 1921. Spent the summer of 1927 on a sketching tour of Yosemite and the Sierra high country producing over 100 new paintings. In 1928 Obata returned to Japan, following his father's death. While there, he supervised the production of 35 colored woodblock prints of California landscapes for his World Landscape Series. They were exhibited at the "Eighty-Seventh Annual Exhibition" at Ueno Park, Tokyo; Lake Basin in the High Sierra won first prize. In 1932 Obata was appointed as an instructor in the Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Between 1930 and 1941, One-man exhibitions were held in numerous locations. In April 1942, Obata was interned at the Tanforan detention center where, during his stay, he organized an art school with over 650 camp residents as students. In September 1942, he was moved to the Topez Relocation Center, Topez, Utah. Released from Topaz in 1943, he moved with his family to St Louis, finding employment with a commercial art company. In 1945, when the military exclusion ban was lifted, Obata was reinstated as an instructor at U.C. Berkeley. He was promoted to Associate Professor of Art in 1948.

One-Man shows continued, as did his sketching and painting trips in the high country, often with the Sierra Club. In 1954 he became a naturalized citizen and retired as Professor Emeritus from U.C. Berkeley. From 1955 to 1970 he traveled throughout California giving lectures and demonstrations on Japanese brush painting. In 1965 he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 5th Class, Emperor's Award, for promoting good will and cultural understanding between the United States and Japan. He died in 1975, aged 90.

Posthumous exhibitions of Chiura Obata works have been organized at the Oakland Museum, The Smithsonian Institution and most recently at the M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco, in 2000.

1   Total records found: 6

Peter The Stork   Title page of the series   Lake Mary, Inyo National Forest   Foggy Morning, Van Ness Avenue (San Francisco)   Storm, Lick Observatory, Mount Hamilton   Dawn, Knight's Ferry, Stanislaus County

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Artist Bio Index:

18th & 19th C. Artists:				Hiroshige Chikanobu Eisen Eizan Gakutei Hirosada Hiroshige II Hokusai Kunichika Kunisada Kuniyoshi Kyosai (Gyosai) Shunsho Toyokuni I Toyokuni III Yoshitoshi
20th C. Artists:				Bertha Lum Charles Bartlett Chiura Obata Clifton Karhu Cyrus Leroy Baldridge Elizabeth Keith Hajime Namiki Haku Maki Hashiguchi Goyo Helen Hyde Hiroshi Yoshida Ito Shinsui Joichi Hoshi Katsunori Hamanishi Kawase Hasui Kawase Hasui   (Posthumous) Kiyoshi Saito Koshiro Onchi Ohara Shoson   (Koson) Paul Jacoulet Ryohei Tanaka Sadao Watanabe Shigeki Kuroda Shinichi Nakazawa Shiro Kasamatsu Yamamoto Shoun Sugiura Tadashi Nakayama Takahashi Hiroaki   (Shotei) Toko Shinoda Tomoo Inagaki Toraji Ishikawa Torii Kotondo Toshi Yoshida Tsuchiya Koitsu Tsuruya Kokei Umetaro Azechi Unichi Hiratsuka Yoshitoshi Mori Yuji Hiratsuka
China Trade:				Auguste Borget Chinese School Edward Hildebrandt Thomas Allom William Alexander
Modern Originals:				Carol Jessen
Natural History:				J. James Audubon Mark Catesby John Gould
Antique Maps:				Conrad Lotter Gilles Robert Gerard de Jode Henricus Hondius Jan Huygen John Tallis Matthaeus Seutter Nicolas Sanson

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