Mine Okubo: Following Her Own Road by Greg Robinson,Elena Tajima Creef

�To me existence and artwork are one and a similar, for the foremost lies in one's wisdom of individuals and lifestyles. In paintings one is attempting to specific it within the least difficult resourceful approach, as within the paintings of previous civilizations, for attractiveness and fact are the one issues which stay undying and ageless.� - Min� Okubo

This is the 1st book-length serious exam of the existence and paintings of Min� Okubo (1912-2001), a pioneering Nisei artist, author, and social activist who again and again defied traditional function expectancies for ladies and for eastern american citizens over her seventy-year profession. Okubo's landmark Citizen 13660 (first released in 1946) is the 1st and arguably best-known autobiographical narrative of the wartime jap American relocation and confinement experience.

Born in Riverside, California, Okubo was once incarcerated by way of the U.S. executive in the course of international struggle II, first on the Tanforan meeting middle in California and later on the Topaz conflict Relocation middle in Utah. There she taught paintings and directed the construction of a literary and artwork journal. whereas in camp, Okubo documented her confinement adventure through making thousands of work and pen-and-ink sketches. those supplied the cloth for Citizen 13660. observe of her expertise unfold to Fortune journal, which employed her as an illustrator. below the magazine's auspices, she was once in a position to go away the camp and relocate to ny urban, the place she pursued her artwork over the subsequent part century.

This gorgeous and alluring e-book, lavishly illustrated with either colour and halftone pictures, lots of that have by no means ahead of been reproduced, introduces readers to Okubo's oeuvre via a range of her work, drawings, illustrations, and writings from diversified classes of her lifestyles. furthermore, it comprises tributes and essays on Okubo's occupation and legacy via experts within the fields of artwork heritage, schooling, women's experiences, literature, American political background, and ethnic reports, essays that light up the significance of her contributions to American arts and letters.

Min� Okubo expands the sparse severe literature on Asian American girls, in addition to that at the Asian American adventure within the jap usa. It additionally serves as a good significant other to Citizen 13660, offering serious instruments and history to put Okubo's paintings in its historic and literary contexts.