In Miné Okubo’s 1943 watercolor “Wind and Dust”, a family huddles together in a sandstorm, shielding one another from the relentless desert winds. Behind them, rows of barracks punctuate a desolate landscape. The scene captures more than physical hardship; it reflects the psychological battering endured by over 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated to incarceration camps during World War II.
This painting is one of nearly 100 works featured in “Pictures of Belonging”, an exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., organized by curator and scholar ShiPu Wang. The show focuses on three female artists—Miné Okubo, Hisako Hibi, and Miki Hayakawa—whose artistic careers were deeply impacted, but not extinguished, by the U.S. government’s wartime policies.
Art Amid Incarceration
The exhibition highlights the extraordinary resilience of these artists, who continued to create under harrowing conditions. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, Japanese Americans were stripped of their homes and possessions and sent to remote incarceration camps. Among them were Okubo and Hibi, who were detained at the Topaz camp in Utah after an initial stay at the Tanforan Assembly Center, a former horse racing track where detainees were housed in stables.
Despite these conditions, Okubo and Hibi used their art to document daily life in the camps. Okubo’s diaristic approach shines in works like “Sunday” (1943), depicting elderly women clutching Bibles as they brave the cold on their way to a service. Her drawings, later compiled in her groundbreaking book “Citizen 13660” (1946), remain one of the earliest firsthand accounts of Japanese American incarceration.
Hibi’s works from this period, including “Tanforan Assembly Center” (1942) and “Eastern Sky, 7:50 A.M.” (1945), are somber and evocative, capturing the barrenness of the camps and the apocalyptic skies of Utah. Even her vibrant still lifes from this time—featuring flowers and produce grown through inmates’ grueling labor—carry an undercurrent of perseverance amid adversity.
A Prewar Artistic Legacy
Before the war, Okubo, Hibi, and Hayakawa were part of San Francisco’s multicultural art scene. They studied at the California School of Fine Arts, where Asian American artists like them were thriving despite the era’s exclusionary laws. Hayakawa, who avoided incarceration by relocating to New Mexico, was celebrated for her sensitive portraits, such as her 1930s series featuring a handsome man playing a ukulele. Her style, influenced by European modernists like Picasso, reflected the cosmopolitan energy of the prewar art world.
Hibi and Hayakawa’s shared artistic community is evident in works like Hibi’s “Portrait of an African American Man” (1926) and a painting by Chinese American artist Yun Gee, which shows Hayakawa at work on the same portrait. These pieces, along with prewar landscapes like Hayakawa’s “From My Window” (1935) and Hibi’s “Spring #2, Hayward” (1940), evoke a vibrant era that was abruptly interrupted by wartime incarceration.
Postwar Survival and Rediscovery
The war left lasting scars on the artists’ careers and lives. Okubo managed to leave Topaz early after securing a job offer from Forbes magazine. She moved to New York City, where she supported herself as an illustrator before fully devoting herself to art. Her postwar works, like “Boy, Rooster, Cat” (1964), took on a playful, pictographic style that contrasted sharply with her wartime depictions.
Hibi, unable to find work outside the West Coast due to government restrictions, remained at Topaz until its closure. After her release, she worked as a seamstress and housekeeper while raising her children alone following her husband’s death. Yet, her art persisted, and her later works, like “Poems by Madame Takeko Kujo” (1970), reveal a light-filled, lyrical quality that speaks to renewal.
Hayakawa’s career, tragically, was cut short by her death in 1953. Her work, celebrated in her lifetime, largely disappeared into private collections, making her inclusion in this exhibition all the more remarkable.
A Timely Reminder
That “Pictures of Belonging” exists at all is a testament to ShiPu Wang’s dedication. Much of the prewar work by these artists has been lost, either abandoned during incarceration or dispersed over time. Yet the exhibition succeeds in assembling a powerful narrative of resilience, creativity, and survival.
As the United States grapples with ongoing debates about immigration and citizenship, this exhibition serves as a poignant reminder of a dark chapter in its history—and of the artists who bore witness to it. Through their works, Okubo, Hibi, and Hayakawa reclaim their rightful place in American art history, offering a legacy of belonging that endures.
