Arthur Okamura

Arthur Okamura (February 24, 1932 - July 10, 2009) was an American artist, working in screen printing, drawing and painting. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was Professor Emeritus at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California. His work is in the permanent collections at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum in New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He is associated with the San Francisco Renaissance. He illustrated numerous works of literature and poetry, published a book on games and toys for children, and created illustrations for the TV movie The People.
Early life
Okamura was born in Long Beach, California, on February 24, 1932. Okamura was an American of Japanese descent.
During World War II, as a child, Okamura and his family were relocated to the Granada War Relocation Center in southeast Colorado. As a result of Executive Order 9066, the United States government forced the relocation of many American residents of Japanese ancestry to a Japanese American internment camp.
Education
Okamura attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1950 to 1954, Yale School of Art in 1954, and the University of Chicago in 1951, 1953 and 1957. He moved to California after his university studies, living in San Francisco, then the artist colony of Bolinas.
Career
He taught at the California College of the Arts for over 30 years, retiring in 1997. He died July 10, 2009, in Bolinas.
Exhibitions
His first solo exhibition was in 1953, at the Frank Ryan Gallery, in Chicago. He has had exhibits at the Oakland Museum of Art (1959), the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (1962), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1968). In addition to being in the aforementioned permanent collections, his work is in the collections of the Legion of Honor, the Oakland Museum, the Stanford University Collection, and the California College of the Arts. He had numerous solo and group or joint exhibits over the last 50 years. Catalogs of his exhibits have been published. He is represented by the Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco.
Bibliography
1234567890, by Arthur Okamura and Robert Creeley. Shambhala Publications, 1971
Calm and Clear, by Lama Nipham, translated by Tarthang Tulku, cover and illustrations by Arthur Okamura. Berkeley, Dharma Publishing, 1973
Just Space: Poems, 1979-1989, by Joanne Kyger, illustrated by Arthur Okamura. David R. Godine, 1991
Ten Poems by Issa, Robert Bly, translator. illustrated by Arthur Okamura. Floating Island Publications, 1992
The Paper Propeller, The Spinning Quarter, The Jumping Frog +38 Other Amazing Tricks You Can Do with Stuff Lying Around the House, written and illustrated by Arthur Okamura. Bolinas, CA; Shelter Publications.
The Healing Spirit of Haiku, David H. Rosen and Joel Weishaus, Illustrated by Arthur Okamura. New York: Random House/North Atlantic Books (2004)
Awards
1951 Neysa McMein Purchase Award, Whitney Museum of Art
1957 Marin Cahn Award, Art Institute of Chicago
1960 Schwagacher-Frey Award, San Francisco Museum of Art
1976 Purchase Prize, San Francisco Arts Commission
References
External links
pictures of Okamura in his studio, 2006
Commonweal Newsletter, December 2007
Haikuworld.org
Okamura biography at the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts
1932 births
2009 deaths
American artists of Japanese descent
Japanese-American internees
American printmakers
Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area
American illustrators
Writers who illustrated their own writing
Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area
School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
Yale School of Art alumni
University of Chicago alumni
People from Bolinas, California
Artists from Long Beach, California