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🔥 Important Vintage Japanese Modern Woman Portrait Drawing Painting, OKAMURA 57

Description: This is an expressive and Important Vintage Japanese Modern Woman Portrait Drawing Painting. Ink on Wove Paper, by esteemed Japanese - American Modernist Nisei painter, Arthur Okamura (1932 - 2009.) This piece depicts the portrait of a young woman, in deep contemplation or angst, leaning against a desk with her hand on her head. Her eyes are cast downward, and she looks purposefully away from the viewer's gaze. Signed and dated in the lower right corner: "OKAMURA '57." Additionally, this artwork is titled and signed on the verso: "Liz. By Arthur Okamura." Approximately 17 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches (including frame.) Actual artwork is approximately 9 x 11 3/4 inches. Very good condition for age, with mild scuffing, edge wear, and gilding loss to the original vintage period frame. Okamura's original artworks are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, San Jose Museum of Art, among many others. Acquired from an old collection in Los Angeles County, California. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! About the Artist: Arthur Okamura Born: 1932 - Long Beach, CaliforniaDied: 2009 - CaliforniaKnown for: Modernist-leaning landscape to non-objective and figure painting ARTHUR OKAMURA (Asian Art Museum) Known for his screen printing and abstract expressionist paintings, Arthur Okamura (1932–2009) was a Japanese American artist who rose to prominence in the 1960s as a book illustrator and member of an artist community based in Bolinas, California. Born in Long Beach, Okamura grew up in Southern California with his family. During World War II, he and his family were detained at the Santa Anita Assembly Center and later transferred to the Granada War Relocation Center in Colorado, where they were incarcerated for three years. Okamura was 10 years old when he entered the “internment camps.” After the war, his family was released and moved to Chicago. There, Okamura began his art career at a silkscreen poster studio at age 15. After graduating high school, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale School of Art, and University of Chicago. He held his solo first exhibition at the Frank Ryan Gallery in Chicago and was later awarded a fellowship to study painting in Mallorca. In 1956, Okamura moved from Chicago back to California. While he initially lived in San Francisco, he eventually settled in Bolinas. Once established in the artist community there, Okamura illustrated multiple books of poetry by friends. In 1971, he created the pastel drawings for the television movie “The People.” In addition to working as an artist, Okamura taught at the California College of the Arts in Oakland for 31 years, retiring in 1997 as professor emeritus. During his retirement, he wrote and illustrated magic trick books, including “Paper Propeller, the Jumping Frog, the Spinning Quarter: And 38 Other Amazing Tricks You Can Do With Stuff Lying Around the House.” Today, his work can be found in multiple prominent art museums and at the New School at Commonweal in Bolinas, where he served on the board of directors. Primarily known as a painter, Arthur Okamura (1932-2009) was an important Japanese American (Nisei) artist from the San Francisco Bay Area who also became known for his drawings, watercolors, printmaking, and illustrations for books of poetry.Over the course of nearly six decades, Arthur Okamura’s artworks evolved as he moved through several stylistic shifts. Okamura is best known for his expansive series of abstract expressionist paintings and watercolors, his first mature body of work. Created between 1956 and the early 1960s after he had moved his family to San Francisco, Okamura’s abstract paintings are infused with the principles of Zen Buddhist thought, exploring territory different from his contemporaries.As the 1960s progressed, Okamura explored the burgeoning psychedelic movement alongside his Zen practice under master Suzuki Roshi. The works created during these years all bear the hallmarks of what is now known as the Visionary Art Movement. Influenced by the works of early modern masters such as Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee, many of the compositions are composed of numerous tiny human figures stacked and otherwise combined to form larger recognizable shapes, such as a feather or still life of a plant. Other subject matter explored during these years include poetic still lifes of flowers in vases and dreamy landscapes with animals. In 1966, Okamura began teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland (now California College of the Arts in San Francisco) and would continue there until his retirement in 1997. He also taught classes at schools and art centers across the United States and abroad throughout his career.The early 1970s marks the beginning of Okamura fusing his art with the writings of his poetic community of friends. Over the next four decades, Okamura collaborated on six books of poetry and one book of magic tricks with poets Robert Bly, Robert Creeley, Joel Weishaus, Steve Kowit, and Joanne Kyger. He would also have his paintings and drawings reproduced on the covers of numerous books of poetry. The 1970s also coincided with a shift in his art towards expressive realism, but one suffused with a sense of Zen spiritualism and, at times, containing surreal elements. Major series include a decades long exploration of rock gardens, large-scale watercolors of the cliffs surrounding Lake Powell, paintings of temple ruins in Mexico and Bali, flower gardens in Hawaii, and views from the Bolinas Shoreline, to highlight a few. Okamura would continue in this expressionist mode until his death in 2009. Born in Long Beach, CA, in 1932, Arthur Shinji Okamura grew up in the city of Compton, a part of greater Los Angeles. During WWII, Okamura and his family were first moved to the Santa Anita Racetrack Assembly Center and later sent to the Amache Internment Camp near Granada, CO. When the war ended, Okamura’s family moved to Chicago. Between 1950 - 1954, Okamura studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He also took classes at the University of Chicago and a summer seminar at Yale University. While still a student, Okamura had his first solo exhibition of paintings at Frank Ryan Gallery in 1953. He would later show with important American dealers Charles Feingarten (Feingarten Galleries), Diana Fuller (Hansen Fuller Gallery) and Ruth Braunstein (Braunstein/Quay Gallery).Arthur Okamura’s paintings, drawings, watercolors, and prints have been exhibited extensively across the United States and can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Art Institute of Chicago; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Phoenix Art Museum; Cincinnati Art Museum; Oakland Museum of California; San Jose Museum of Art; Crocker Art Museum; di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art; Bolinas Museum, and the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, among others. Arthur Okamura: His Bolinas LifeApril 23 - June 5, 2011 (Bolinas Museum) Renowned California artist, masterful teacher and Professor Emeritus at the California College of the Arts, Arthur Okamura was a loved member of the Bolinas community for 50 years.Okamura first moved to Bolinas in 1959. In the late 1960s he found kindred spirits in the poets, writers, artists and innovators who moved into town. Through his interests, humor and intellectual curiosity, Okamura’s network of friends and colleagues grew to be vast and diverse.In 2009, shock waves rippled through the community as word spread of Okamura’s sudden death at age 77. This exhibition explores Okamura as both an artist and a man in the heart of his community.Okamura was a child living with his family in Compton, California in 1941, when the attack on Pearl Harbor led to his family and thousands of other Japanese Americans being forced into internment camps. Later the family moved to Chicago where, as a student at the Chicago Art Institute, he was exposed to exceptional art and teachers. In 1954, while in Mallorca, Spain on a Fellowship, he met extraordinary American artists and poets, including Robert Creeley, who became his mentors and life long friends. Okamura went on to teach at the California College of the Arts for thirty-one years, while producing a prodigious body of his own art. Okamura’s work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Bolinas Museum.In his town, Okamura collaborated with artists and writers, worked with a health research institute, taught, inspired, played sax, hiked in the mountains, explored ideas, was a father, friend to countless people, and witty magician. This exhibition, curated by Harriet Kossman with Kitty Okamura, explores Arthur’s inspiring and playful life in his own community of Bolinas. Arthur Okamura was born in Long Beach, California, February 24, 1932. He was interned at the Santa Anita Race Track "Assembly Center" soon after Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan, on December 1, 1941. After 6 months, he and his family were transferred to Amache Relocation Center in Colorado, where they lived for three years.After the war ended in 1945, Arthur and his family relocated to Chicago, Illinois. There he attended grammar school, high school and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was in Chicago that he got married and started off in his formative years as an artist. Arthur had always planned to be an artist and began working after school at a silkscreen poster studio when he was fifteen years old. He worked there for twelve years and became the main layout artist and stencil cutter.Upon graduating from the Art Insititute in 1945, he received the Edward L. Ryerson Foreign Travel Fellowship and went, with his wife, to Mallorca in the Balearic Islands to paint. It was in Mallorca that he first met Robert Creeley. Creeley became a close friend who offered him inspiration and influenced his work. Back again in Chicago in 1956, Arthur, his wife and his first child packed up their car and moved to San Francisco, at the suggestion of Arthur's Chicago art dealer, Charles Feingarten, who was opening a gallery in San Francisco. Subsequently, Feingarten opened other galleries in Carmel, Los Angeles and New York.For years Arthur Okamura painted and exhibited prodigiously. In 1959, now with four children, Arthur moved from San Francisco to Bolinas. He and his wife at that time divorced and have since remarried.In 1997 Arthur retired from teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, where he taught for 31 years.Education:The Art Institute of Chicago, 1950-54Yale University Summer Art Seminar, 1954University of Chicago, 1951, 1953, 1957Teaching:The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1957Central YMCA College of Chicago, 1956, 1957Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, 1956, 1957North Shore Art League, Winnetka, IL, 1957Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA, 1958California College of Arts & Crafts, Professor of Fine Arts, 1958, 1959, 1966-1997San Francisco Studio of Art, Director, 1958Saugatuck Summer Art School, Saugatuck, MI, 1959, 1962University of Utah, Guest Lecturer, 1964, 1972Fort Wright College, Spokane, WA, 1976University of California, Santa CruzHumboldt State College, 1977Watercolor Painting in Tahiti, 1987Watercolor Painting in Bali (Sponsored by Wilderness Journeys/Art Trek & University of California, Santa Cruz), 1989, 1991Professor Emeritus: California College of Arts & Crafts, 1997Exhibitions:The Art Institute of Chicago Annuals, 1951-1954Museum of Modern Art, NY, 1954Downtown Gallery, NYPennsylvania Academy of Fine ArtUniversity of Washington, Seattle, 1955Ravinia Art Festival, Highland Park, ILAmerican Exhibition, Art Institute of ChicagoContemporary Americans, LA County MuseumArt In Asia and the West, San Francisco MuseumContemporary American Painting, Art Institute of ChicagoSociety of Contemporary Art, Art Institute of ChicagoWest Coast Painters, American Federation of ArtSan Francisco Annual, San Francisco MuseumContemporary Americans, University of NebraskaRecent Acquisitions, Denver MuseumDrawings of California Artists, Sponsored by U.S. Information Center, Berlin, Cologne, Germany, 1958-1959New Talent, American Federation of Art, 1959Dallas Museum of ArtFresh Paint, De Young Museum, San Francisco, 1958Knoedler Gallery, NY, 1959Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor 1959Whitney Museum, NY, 1960Sculpture and Drawing, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1961Great by Greats, Time Life Building, NY, 1961Whitney Annual, 1962,1963,1964Forty Artists Under Forty, Whitney Museum, 1962Bay Area Artists, San Francisco Museum, 1962Recent Collections by Friends of the Whitney, Whitney Museum 1964Ravinia Art Festival, Lake Forest, IL 1964 Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1964 Pacific Heritage, LA County Museum 1965 SECA Exhibit, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1966Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, 1966Painters Behind Painters, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1967Pittsburgh International Carnegie Institute, 1967Takashima 1970 Exposition, Osaka/Tokyo, Japan, 1970Bay Area Art Faculties, College of Marin, 1970Asian Artists, Oakland Museum, 1971Imaginary Painting from S.F. California State, University of San Jose, 1972"A Sense of Place" Exhibit, Joslyn Nebraska Art Museum, 1973Four from CCAC, Berkeley Art Center, 1974Falkirk Connnunity Cultural Center, San Rafael, CA, 1975Two-Person Show with Joan Rosenbaum, Walnut Creek Art Center, 1975"Zen Gardens", San Jose State University, 1976Tropical Visions, St. Mary's College, 1989Tropic Exotic, TransAmerica Pyramid, SF, 1986"On The Trail," Claudia Chaplin Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA, 1987"Opening Show," Bolinas Museum, 1988"Miniature Show," Bolinas Museum, 1990"In The Garden," Bolinas Museum, 1991"60 Plus: Older Artists of West Marin," Bolinas Museum, 1993Gallery Route One, Pt. Reyes Station, CA, 1993"Sea Fever," Transamerica Pyramid, 1993"Cats," Bolinas Museum, 1993"With New Eyes," San Francisco State University, 1995"As Seen At The Beach," Bolinas Museum, 1997"Miniature Show," Bolinas Museum, 1997Solo Exhibitions:Frank Ryan Gallery, Chicago, IL, 1953La Boutique, Chicago, IL, 1953,1954Feingarten Galleries, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, LA, 1956-1976Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1958California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1961Calhoun Gallery, Dallas, TX, 1962University of Utah, 1964M. Knoedler & Company, NY, 1965Hanson Gallery, San Francisco, 1964-1968College of Holy Names, Oakland, 1966Drawings, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1968Hanson Fuller Gallery, San Francisco, 1971Govett Brewster Gallery, New Zealand, 1971University of Southern Idaho, 1972California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, 1972Kent State University, Kent, OH, 1973Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1973Conunonweal, Bolinas, CA, 1980Stinson Beach Art Center, 1983Ruth Braunstein Gallery, SF, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1994Retrospective: "Selections From a Lifetime of Art," 1995. Concurrently at the Bolinas Museum and at the Claudia Chaplin Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA"Early Paintings," Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1996"Recent Bolinas Landscapes," Commonwealth - 20th Anniversary Celebration, Bolinas, CA, September 1996Prizes:Religious Arts, University of Chicago, 1st Prize 1953Contemporary American Paintings, Art Institute of Chicago, Martin Cahn Award, 1957University of Illinois, Purchase Award 195779th Annual, San Francisco Museum, Schwabacher-Frey Award 1960Whitney Museum of Art, Neysa McMein Purchase Award 1960National Society of Arts & Letters, New York, $1,500 Purchase AwardSan Francisco Art Commission, Purchase Prize 1976Public Collections:Rockefeller Chapel, University of ChicagoSanta Barbara MuseumArt Institute of ChicagoWhitney Museum of ArtSan Francisco Museum of ArtUniversity of IllinoisBorg Warner Collection, Chicago, ILPhoenix Art MuseumIllinois State NormalContainer Corporation of AmericaNational Society of Arts and LettersJohnson Wax CollectionJoseph Hirschhorn CollectionU.S. Steel Service InstituteCorcoran MuseumWhitney MuseumMiles LaboratoryAuchenbach FoundationCalifornia Palace of the Legion of HonorCalifornia College of Arts & CraftsKalamazoo CollegeNational Collection of Fine ArtsSmithsonian InstitutionIllinois Bell TelephoneStanford University CollectionUniversity of Southern IdahoCincinnati Art MuseumOakland Art MuseumUnited Gas & Pipeline Company, Dallas, TXAlta Bates HospitalBooks:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0, Co-Author, Robert Creeley. Publisher Shambala/MudraBasho - Co-Author, Robert Bly. Publisher, MudraOx Herding, Co-Author, Joel Weishaus. Publisher, Cranium PressPassionate Journey, Co-Author, Steve Kowit. Publisher, City Miner Books10 Poems by Issa, Co-Author, Robert Bly. Publisher, Floating Island PublicationsMagic Rabbit. Publisher, Jungle Garden PressExhibited in Handmade Book Section at opening of new San Francisco Library, 1996In the collection of:Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, 1996Marriot Library Special Collections, University of Utah, 1996Video:The Art of Pastel, Sharyle Patton, Director, 1977The Art of Oil Painting, Sharyle Patton, Director, 1980. Made in Collaboration with Marin Community Video Screen Printing, Magda Cregg Productions, 1978Television:Pastel Drawings for television movie "The People," John Korty, Director, 1971Reference Listings:Who's Who in AmericaWho's Who in the WestWho's Who in American ArtWho's Who Among Asian AmericansSet Design:Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, Bandshell, Golden Gate Park, 1997

Price: 975 USD

Location: Orange, California

End Time: 2024-12-28T22:08:14.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD

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Item Specifics

All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted

Artist: Arthur Okamura

Signed By: Arthur Okamura

Size: Medium

Signed: Yes

Period: Post-War (1940-1970)

Title: "Liz"

Material: Ink, Paper

Region of Origin: California, USA

Framing: Matted & Framed

Subject: Community Life, Figures, Ladies, Silhouettes, Still Life, Women, Working Life

Type: Painting

Year of Production: 1957

Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original

Item Height: 20 1/2 in

Style: Expressionism, Figurative Art, Illustration Art, Impressionism, Modernism, Portraiture

Theme: Americana, Art, Exhibitions, Fashion, People, Portrait

Features: One of a Kind (OOAK)

Production Technique: Ink Drawing

Country/Region of Manufacture: United States

Handmade: Yes

Item Width: 17 1/2 in

Time Period Produced: 1950-1959

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