Miné Okubo’s Portraits at SEIZAN Gallery NYC
Miné Okubo, Untitled, 1940s from SEIZAN Gallery
Miné Okubo: Portraits
Now through Saturday, March 1
SEIZAN Gallery – 525 W. 26th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Ground Floor
Admission: Free
SEIZAN Gallery is presenting Miné Okubo: Portraits, the gallery's first solo exhibition featuring work by one of the most influential Japanese American artists of the 20th Century. Until March 1, 2025, works by Okubo will be on public display, some for the first time, including eleven portraits completed in the late 1940s. Okubo achieved early success as an artist and continued to be extraordinarily prolific throughout her life until her death in 2001. She is most renowned for Citizen 13660, a groundbreaking memoir that combines visual art and narrative to record her experience living in Japanese American internment camps during World War II.
About Miné Okubo
Born in Riverside, California, in 1912, Miné Okubo was a nisei, or second-generation Japanese American. After earning an MFA in art and anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, she was awarded the prestigious Bertha Taussig Fellowship to study in Paris under Fernand Léger. When World War II broke out, Okubo returned to the United States in 1939 on the last ship from Europe. Back in California, she contributed to mural projects under the Federal Art Project and curated exhibitions.
From 1942 to 1944, Okubo was detained at the Tanforan Relocation Center in San Bruno, California, and at the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. While in these camps, she created more than 2,000 drawings using charcoal, watercolor, pen, and ink. During this time she taught art to others in the incarcerated population, alongside Chiura Obata and other notable artists. Published in 1946, Citizen 13660 includes nearly 200 illustrations documenting daily life in the camps. It received the American Book Award in 1984.
Miné Okubo, Untitled, 1940s from SEIZAN Gallery
Life and Work in New York City
After her release from Topaz in 1944, Okubo relocated to New York City, where she went on to have a successful career as a commercial illustrator for prestigious publications such as The New York Times, LIFE, and Fortune while continuing her painting practice. Her debut assignment was illustrating the magazine's April 1944 "Japan" issue. Portraits—especially of women and children—remained a central focus of her work. In "Personal Statement" she wrote "From the beginning, my work has been rooted in a concern for the humanities."
The eleven portraits featured in this exhibition were created in the late 1940s, just a few years after Okubo’s release from the camps. These bold, powerful works share stylistic connections with her earlier charcoal drawings from the internment period, which are also displayed in the gallery. While her camp drawings often convey the despair and trauma of the incarcerated, the later portraits—rendered in colorful pastel—capture energy, strength, and compassion. The anonymous figures exude vitality and humanity, celebrating everyday life and signal an early transition to Okubo's iconic, color-rich style.
Recognition and Legacy
Her contributions have been recognized in numerous ways. In 1965, CBS-TV featured her in the documentary Nisei: The Pride and the Shame. In 1972, her first retrospective was held at the Oakland Museum. In 1981, Okubo testified before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), advocating for the inclusion of internment history in educational curricula.
Okubo’s works are now archived at the Center for Social Justice & Civil Liberties at Riverside Community College District and featured in prominent museum collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Oakland Museum. Her legacy endures in exhibitions like The View from Within curated by Karin Higa in 1992 at the Japanese American National Museum as well as on-going group exhibition Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo at the Smithsonian American Art Museum curated by ShiPu Wang through August 17, 2025.
SEIZAN Gallery
Located in Chelsea, SEIZAN’s hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. and Sunday and Monday by appointment. For more information, please visit SEIZAN Gallery’s website.
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