Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience [Hardcover]

Kristine Kim (Author), Emily Anderson (Translator), Madeleine Sugimoto (Epilogue)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 26, 2001

Henry Sugimoto is the first-ever survey of this relatively unknown but remarkable artist. From the early work influenced by the European impressionists and post-impressionists to the later work that extensively documents and interprets the experiences of Japanese Americans behind barbed wire, this is a stunning body of work. Henry Sugimoto accompanies a major exhibition of his work at the Japanese American National Museum in Spring 2001.

Editorial Reviews

Review

''Drawing on his camp experiences, Sugimoto created a body of work that is poignant, even heartbreaking... always resonant...''--Los Angeles Times

''Sugimoto had been a rising artist... His internment... left him melancholy...but also gave his work depth and poignancy.''--New York Times

''This book puts Sugimoto's art in context with his life and times and beautifully reprints much of his work.'' --Utah Historical Quarterly --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Kristine Kim is associate curator at the Japanese American National Museum, where she previously organized the exhibition A Process of Reflection: Paintings by Hisako Hibi. She received a B.A. from Mills College in 1994 and is currently completing graduate work in the department of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on twentieth-century art and Asian American artists.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Heyday Books (February 26, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890771384
• ISBN-13: 978-1890771386
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,275,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fitting testament to a great artist, May 18, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience (Paperback)

Henry Sugimoto: Painting An American Experience is the companion volume to a major exhibit of a remarkable Japanese-American artist. Henry Sugimoto (1900-1999) had an art career that spanned the 20th century and whose work reveals a talented, gifted, complex, and engaging painter. From his early work (influenced by European impressionism and then the post-impressionists) to his painted documentation to the Japanese-American experiences of World War II era Arkansas-based internment camps, to his later efforts in New York City, this superbly presented, full-color survey of his life and work is a fitting testament to a great artist.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accessible Art, Accessible History, April 26, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience (Hardcover)

Whether your interest is in art or in history, you definitely will find pleasure here! Regardless of where your interest may lay, this book is a highly accessible one. Sugimoto's art is accessible to non-artistics (if there's such a word ;-) and Kristine Kim's narrative is accessible to non-academics. As an American of Japanese ancestry, I find that our history is depicted in a way that satisfies both the eye and the intellect.

An immigrant from Japan and an impressionist artist whose work later reflected his exposure to the Mexican muralists, Sugimoto's work documented the Japanese-American experience. Drawing on his unpublished autobiography, as well as other source documents, Kristine Kim appropriately delivers Sugimoto's art within the historical context that so strongly influenced his style and subject matter. Each chapter in Sugimoto's life is followed by the artwork created in that period. The most significant period being World War II.

WWII was a dark time for Japanese-Americans (and for US citizens, as a whole). Sugimoto was incarcerated: first at the Fresno Assembly Center and later at concentration camps in Arkansas. While in the camps, where cameras were forbidden, Sugimoto used his brushes and canvas to document the existence of persons imprisoned solely for their ethnicity. His work is filled with the emotions of that time - hope for the future, sorrow at injustice, longing for freedom, pride in country, sadness at the thought of sons fighting far away. On the surface, many of the paintings seem to show "normal" everyday life but subtle signs (pink ration book, guard towers, mess hall) hint at the fact that the people in the paintings are incarcerated.

Having seen several times the Sugimoto exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum, I have seen many of the paintings included in this book. The panels of those works represent them well. Be sure to check out his painting titled "When Can We Go Home?" It is remarkable in that it's startling, emotional and bold and subtle at once. It struck my heart in a way that's difficult to put into words.

Never one to cease growing in his art, in the 1960's Sugimoto experimented with woodblock prints. They are amazing! Beautiful, detailed, with depth of feelings.

Henry Sugimoto was a talented artist whose work reflects not only his experiences but his wondrous humanity and compassion. He is not well known. Hopefully the current exhibit and this book will rectify that!