Portrait by Clem Kalischer
MINÉ OKUBO (1912–2001)
1921
Born in Riverside, CA, USA
EDUCATION
1936
MA University of California at. Berkeley, CA
1935
BA, University of California at Berkeley, CA
1930
Riverside Junior College, Riverside, CA ( - 1933)
TEACHING
1950
University of California at Berkeley, Lecturer in Art ( - 1952)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1993
Into the Light: Miné Okubo, Bank of Boston Gallery, sponsored by the Japan Society of Boston
1988
New York Community Redress Celebration, Roosevelt Hotel, New York
Illustrations from Citizen 13660 and Trek, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Burlington, CA
1985
Miné Okubo: A Retrospective 1942-1985, Catherine Gallery, New York
1983
Solo Exhibition and book signing, Basement Workshop Gallery, New York
1981
The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Roosevelt Hotel, New York
1980
Thousand Branches Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1977
A View from the Inside, Oakland Museum, CA
1974
Citizen 13660 Comes Home: Miné Okubo Exhibits Her Paintings for Her Friends and Fellow Townspeople, Riverside City College Art Gallery, Riverside, CA
1973
Months of Waiting, Chandler Pavilion, Los. Angeles Music Center, CA
Honolulu Academy of Art
1972
Miné Okubo: An American Experience, with catalogue, The Oakland Museum, CA
1968
Image Gallery, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
1961
California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco
1958
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
1951
Mortimer Levitt Gallery, New York
1945
New School for Social Research, New York
1944
Japanese, European, Camp works, Rockefeller Center, New York
1941
Two solo exhibitions of European Impressions, San Francisco Museum
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
THINGS SHE CARRIES: Miné Okubo/ Aya Fujioka/ Yukiko Hata, SEIZAN Gallery, New York
1996
WPA Color Prints: Works from the Federal Art Project, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
1992
The View from Within, Japanese American National Museum/U.C.L.A. Wright Art Gallery, Los Angeles
1991
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
1989
Hastings-on-Hudson Gallery, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
1982
Images in Isolation, San Francisco State University
1980
Basement Workshop, Asian American Artists, New York
1979
Dragon and the Chrysanthemum, Summit Visual Arts Center, Summit, NJ
1978
Basement Workshop, Folk History and Arts Festival, New York
Expressions from Exile, Japanese American art from the Concentration Camps San Francisco State University ( - 1979)
1977
A Half Century of Japanese Artists in New York 1910-1950, Azuma Gallery, New York
1975
Transcendent Blossoms, Syntex Corporation, Palo Alto, CA
1972
Group Exhibition of Japanese American Relocation Camp art, California Historical Society, San Francisco, CA
1960
San Francisco Art Association Annual
1959
San Francisco Art Association Annual
1958
San Francisco Art Association Annual
1954
Downtown Gallery, New York
Art Institute of Chicago Annual
1953
Art Institute of Chicago Annual
1952
Art Institute of Chicago Annual
1951
Art Institute of Chicago Annual
1946
As Nisei Saw It, Riverside Fine Arts Guild, Riverside Public Library, Riverside, CA
1945
Common Council for American Unity, New York
TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS
1976
Evacuation Art from Citizen 13660, Seibu Corporation of America, Tokyo, and travel throughout Japan
1975
Executive Order 9066, Seibu Corporation of America, Tokyo, and travel throughout Japan ( - 1976)
1974
Selected Works from The Oakland Museum’s “Miné Okubo: An American Experience, Western Association of Art Museums Traveling Exhibition, Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States ( - 1975)
1945
National traveling show of the art from the Japanese Relocation Camps
AWARDS & HONORS
1991
WCA Honor Award, National Women’s Caucus for Art Conference, 12th Annual Ceremony, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
1988
Selected one of 12 women pioneers in the history of California by the California State Department of Education
1984
American Book Award for Citizen 13660, Before Columbus Foundation, 5th Annual Award, Wheeler Auditorium, University of California at Berkeley
1974
Distinguished Alumni Award, Riverside Community College, CA
1972
Los Angeles County Award, Evacuee Artists in Months of Waiting Exhibition
1948
Annual Prize, San Francisco Museum
1940
Anonymous Donor Prize, San Francisco Museum
University of California Award
1938
Bertha Henicke Taussig Traveling Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley, toured and studied in Europe for 18 months ( - 1939)
1937
San Francisco Art Association Purchase Prize
COMMISSIONS
1980
Stegman Mural, 4’ x 6’, San Francisco, CA
1948
The American Export Lines, four mural paintings
1939
WPA Federal Arts Program, 1939-41; to paint and demonstrate murals, mosaics, and frescoes at Government Island, Oakland Hospitality House, Fort Ord, And Treasure Island, CA
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
Private Collections in Berkeley, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Riverside, San Francisco, Woodside, California
ILLUSTRATIONS
1987
Courtroom sketch artist for class action lawsuit by the National Coalition on Japanese American Relocation, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington D.C.
1944
Free-lance illustrator for major magazines and periodicals, including Fortune, Life, Time, The Saturday Review, The New York Times, Common Ground, Survey Graphics, The San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Japanese American News ( - 1952)
1944
Illustrator, Fortune Magazine; paintings on Japan, appear in April 1944 issue
1942
Art editor and illustrator, Trek, literary magazine at Central Utah Relocation Camp, Topaz, Utah
(internment camp for Japanese Americans) ( - 1943)
1930
Artist, Yearbook Staff, Riverside Junior College ( - 1933)
PUBLICATIONS
1989
Citizen 13660 3rd reprinting, University of Washington Press, Seattle
1987
LaDuke, Betty. “Mine Okubo: An American Experience, Rikka-cultural journal, Plowshare press, June
1986
LaDuke, Betty. “Mine Okubo: An American Experience,” TV-KSOR Guide, August
1984
Citizen 13660, translated and published by Ochanomizu Shobo Ltd., Tokyo Japan
1983
Citizen 13660, reprinted in paperback, University of Washington Press, Seattle
1982
Tabi- Journey Through Time, Stories of the Japanese in America, Drawings from “Citizen 13660”
1978
Citizen 13660, reprinted, Arno Press, The New York Times Co., Inc., New York, in The Asian Experience in North America
1966
Citizen 13660, reprinted, AMS Press, New York
1946
Citizen 13660, Columbia University Press, New York. Okubo’s record of the Relocation Camp experience in journals, drawings, and sketches
LECTURES
1979
“An Artist’s Story of Japanese Evacuation”, Fordham University at Lincoln Center, JACL, Asian-pacific American Heritage Week, slide-illustrated lecture, New York
1977
University of California at Berkeley, Asian American Studies Center, slide-illustrated lecture
1975
Princeton University, Third World Culture Center, Princeton, NJ, slide-illustrated lecture
1974
Princeton University, Third World Culture Center, Princeton, NJ
FILM, TELEVISION & VIDEO
1996
Persistent Women Artists: Pablita Velarde, Miné Okubo, Lois Mailou Jones, directed by Brian Varaday, Presented by Betty LaDuke, Southern Oregon State College Productions
1987
Interview, KUED-7, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
Interview, Straight Talk with Denise Richardson, WNOR-TV, Secaucus, NJ
1986
Miné Okubo: An American Experience, KSOR Guide, by Betty LaDuke
1981
Citizen 13660, Fuji Telecasting, New York, NY
1979
Interview, In the Belly of the Beast, a documentary film of the Japanese American internment camps, directed by Jason Hwang, New York University
1973
Interview, Hiroshi Ogawa Television Program, Fuji Telecasting Company, Tokyo, Japan
1965
“The Nisei: The Pride & The Shame,” Twentieth Century Television, CBS News and Walter Cronkite
OTHER RELATED ACTIVITIES
1981
Testified before U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation, Washington, D.C.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1995
California Alumni Association. California Monthly. Berkeley, California: University of California February, p. 38.
Marvis, Barbara J., Contemporary American Success Stories: Famous People of Asian Ancestry, A Mitchell Lane Multicultural Biography Series, Vol. IV. Childs, Maryland: Mitchell Lane Publishers, p. 24-47.
1993
TOPAZ, Paintings by Topaz Artists.1993 Calendar, Hayward, CA
King, Laurie, Hear My Voice, a multicultural anthology of literature from the United States. New York: Addison Wesley.
O'Malley, R., "Interview: Miné Okubo's Long Journey to Find Truth in Art," Sampan, Vol. XXI, No. 10, March 19, pp. 1, 6-7.
1992
Brown, Michael D. Views from Asian California: 1920-1965, San Francisco, CA
Constitution: The Internment, Winter 1992, New York.
LaDuke, Betty. "Miné Okubo: A Japanese American Experience," Women Artists: Multi-Cultural Visions. Trenton, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press.
1991
Rogers, Daniel, "Milestones in California History: Executive Order 9066 (February 19, 1942)" California History: The Magazine of The California Historical Society. San Francisco, California. Vol. LXX No. 4, Winter 1991/92. Cover, inside front cover, and back cover illustrations by Miné Okubo.
1988
LaDuke, Betty, "Miné Okubo: An American Experience." Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology. Corvallis, Oregon: Calyx Books, pp. 186-195.
1987
California State Department of Education poster: California Women: Courage, Compassion, Conviction, 1987.
California State Department of Education Project SEE (Sex Equity in Education), "A Woman with a Vision," California Women, Sacramento, California.
Gesensway, Deborah and Mindy Roseman. Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1987. Essay by Mine Okubo on relocation, pp. 66-74.
LaDuke, Betty, "On the Right Road: The Life of Miné Okubo." Art Education: The Journal of the National Art Education Association. May 1987, pp. 43-48.
1985
McClelland, Gordon T. and Jay T. Last. The California Style: California Watercolor Artists 1925-1955. Beverly Hills, California: Hillerest Press, Inc., p. 132-133.
1984
Orr-Cahall, Christina, Editor. The Art of California: Selected Works from the Collection of the Oakland Museum. Oakland, California: Oakland Museum Art Department, 1984.
1978
Shizune, Takashima, “To a Total New Generation – Mine Okubo,” Rikka Winter Issue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
1976
Von Blum, Paul. The Art of Social Conscience. New York: Universe Books.
1972
Haley, John, Introduction to Miné Okubo: an American Experience, The Oakland Museum.
1971
Gross, Richard E. and Robert F. Madgic, Editors. The World at War 1941-1945. San Francisco: Field Educational Publications, Inc.
1959
Thiel, Yvonne Greer. Artists and People. Philosophical Library Inc.
1952
Eaton, Allen H. Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in our War Relocation Camps. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers.
EXHIBITIONS
THINGS SHE CARRIES
Miné Okubo, Aya Fujioka, Yukiko Hata