Japanese Artists - Essay Example

Japanese – American artists have created their distinct identity in this regard. In the present essay, we will focus on two such renowned Japanese – American artists: Sueo Serisawa and Chiura Obata. Sueo Serisawa Short biography: Born in Yokohama (Japan) in the year 1910, Serisawa’s father was an artist. The family migrated to USA and settled in Los Angeles during 1918. Serisawa was inspired by his father as an artist. As he grew up, he got involved in California Art and adopted American Impressionism as his working style.

Serisawa excelled in creating portraits, still lifes, and landscape scenes. Unfortunately, the date of his first art exhibition coincided with the date of Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After the incident of Pearl Harbor, Serisawa was fearful of forced internment by the US Government since he was a Japanese emigrant. From 1941 to 1947, his life was uncertain since he moved to New York to avoid internment while political tensions loomed all around. However, after the War, Serisawa established himself as a painting instructor.

He successfully worked at Laguna Beach School of Art, Scripps College, and Kahn Art Institute. He continued painting and teaching till his death in 2004. Critique and research: The art critics have highly appreciated Serisawa’s works and he has always been regarded as a talented artist in the sphere of impressionism and modernism. According to Susan Landauer, Donald D. Keyes, and Jean Stern, Serisawa was a significant figure among the California Impressionists and he considerably contributed in American arts along with other prominent artists like Mabel Alvarez, Boris Deutsch, etc.

Serisawa’s modernist approach was well matured as early as the 1940s. However, both political and personal histories interfered with his artistic career and thought. In the later years of his life, according to Alissa J. Anderson, Serisawa’s works were deeply influenced by oriental culture, Zen philosophy, and Japanese calligraphy. Moreover, considerable political influence too can be noted on some of his important works. For example, Serisawa’s Nine O’clock News is a masterpiece that shows a political statement about war using certain symbols and impressionist expressions (Landauer, Susan, William H.

Gredts, and Patricia Trenton, 76). Serisawa and the California school influenced each other for a considerable period of time. Serisawa’s father himself was a Japanese artist, so he exhibited an oriental touch in his artworks. The difficult time of internment of the Japanese Americans by the US Government compelled Serisawa to leave Los Angeles, where he had grown up and learned the vital early lessons of art. However, later Serisawa admitted that those difficult days had rather helped him to mature as an artist.

Analyzing Serisawa’s artworks, it ca be finally said that he has been a versatile artist, who excelled in making portraits, landscape scenes, and still lifes, along with complicated impressionist and modernist abstracts. Chiura Obata Short biography: Chiura Obata was born in 1885 in Japan. He migrated to USA in 1903. Initially, he worked as a commercial director and illustrator. He worked for the San Francisco based Japanese newspapers the Japanese American and The New World. He also worked as a commercial designer with Iwata Dry Goods Co.

and Toyo Kisen Kaisha Steamship Co. In 1921, he became the