Hideo Date (January 5, 1907 – January 6, 2005) was a Japanese-born American painter active from the 1930s to the 1980s, known for combining elements of Japanese ''

nihonga ''Nihonga'' () is a Japanese style of painting that typically uses mineral pigments, and occasionally ink, together with other organic pigments on silk or paper. The term was coined during the Meiji period (1868–1912) to differentiate it from ...

'' with American

Synchromism Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890–1973) and Morgan Russell (1886–1953). Their abstract "synchromies," based on an approach to painting that analogized color to music, were a ...

. A prominent figure in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

art scene prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, his career was interrupted by the wartime

incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese descent in ten concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), mostly in the western interior of the country. About ...

. Although he continued painting for decades after the war, Date's work remained largely ignored until he was rediscovered by a younger generation of artists and curators in the 1990s.

Early life

Date was born in

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

, Japan, and his father left for California in search of work shortly thereafter. Date's mother and brothers later joined his father to help in the hardware store he had established in

Fresno Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

, and in 1923, a sixteen-year-old Date immigrated to California as well.{{cite web, last=Wakida , first=Patricia , url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Hideo%20Date/ , title=Hideo Date , publisher=Densho Encyclopedia , accessdate=18 July 2014 After his father was forced to file for bankruptcy and close the hardware store in 1925,Patrick, Alisha.
Hideo Date (1907-2005)
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107012828/http://www.sullivangoss.com/hideo_Date/ , date=2017-11-07 ." Retrieved 25 August 2014. the family moved to Los Angeles, where Date graduated from Polytechnic High School. In 1928, he enrolled at the

Otis Art Institute Otis College of Art and Design is a Private university, private Art school, art and design school in Los Angeles, California, United States. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is l ...

, but he left the next year over an argument with the Institute's director, who had urged him to stop painting "in an Oriental manner."Cheng, Scarlet.
A Painter Ready to Claim His Place
(28 October 2001) ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved 25 August 2014. His parting words were: "If you don't like my painting, you can go to hell."Higa, Karin. ''In Living Color: The Art of Hideo Date'' (Berkeley, California: Heyday Books, 2001). Date studied traditional Japanese painting at the Kawabata Gakko in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

for two years, returning to Los Angeles in 1930. Over the next several years, Date became active in the local arts community and began exhibiting his work, helping his two brothers at their flower shop during the day and attending art classes at night. He was a member of the Independents, a group of Los Angeles area artists who rejected the tenets of

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

, and worked closely with Synchromism co-founder

Stanton Macdonald-Wright Stanton Macdonald-Wright (July 8, 1890 – August 22, 1973), was a modern American artist. He was a co-founder of Synchromism, an early abstract, color-based mode of painting, which was the first American avant-garde art movement to receive int ...

and others in the

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

movement. Date showed paintings in exhibitions of the Japanese Artists of Los Angeles, Young Painters at the College Art Association, Foundation of Western Art, the Los Angeles Oriental Artists Group, and the Los Angeles Art Association. He received a commission to paint a mural in Pickfair, the mansion home of

Mary Pickford Gladys Louise Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American film actress and producer. A Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood care ...

, and later Macdonald-Wright, then heading the Southern California

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

Federal Arts Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

, arranged for Date to paint another at a school in the Japanese American community of

Terminal Island Terminal Island, historically known as , is a largely artificial island located in Los Angeles County, California, between the neighborhoods of Wilmington, Los Angeles, Wilmington and San Pedro, Los Angeles, San Pedro in the city of Los Angeles ...

. Date was at work on the second mural at the time of the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...

and

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a President of the United States, United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. "This order authorized the fo ...

; it remained unfinished when he was sent to camp in 1942 and has since disappeared.

World War II and later career

During

, he was "evacuated" from the West Coast with other Japanese Americans, first to the Santa Anita Assembly Center in California and then to the Heart Mountain concentration camp in Wyoming. While at Heart Mountain, Date and fellow inmate Benji Okubo formed the Art Students League school and taught art classes in camp. At its peak the school had 250 students and teachers, who showcased their work in several exhibitions and created a mural at the camp. Date himself continued drawing and painting in camp, although he almost exclusively created pictures of cats. Date was released from Heart Mountain in 1945, to work on a mural in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

. He returned to Los Angeles briefly in 1947, to retrieve his pre-war artwork and hold a show at the Art Center School, but otherwise remained based in New York for the rest of his life. He married Yuriko Tamaki, and in 1955, after the Walter-McCarran Act struck down race-based restrictions on naturalization, he became a U.S. citizen. Although Date continued working, his career never fully recovered from the interruption caused by his wartime confinement. He participated in a few exhibitions in the 1950s, but did not show any work again until 1977. In the late 1990s, Date donated almost 200 works to the

Japanese American National Museum The is located in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. Founded in 1992, it is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affi ...

in Los Angeles. Two other area museums showcased his work in 2000, and in 2001 the JANM retrospective, "In Living Color: The Art of Hideo Date," opened to the public. The JANM exhibit's curator, Karin Higa, published an accompanying book on Date and his work under the same title. Date died at his home in

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

one day after his ninety-eighth birthday, in 2005.

References

{{reflist

External links

Japanese American National Museum's online collection of paintings by Hideo Date.

Article on Hideo Date by Karin Higa, author of Date's biography
{{authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Date, Hideo 1907 births 2005 deaths American artists of Japanese descent Japanese-American internees Japanese people imprisoned in the United States 20th-century American painters American male painters John H. Francis Polytechnic High School alumni Otis College of Art and Design alumni Japanese emigrants to the United States 20th-century American male artists Art Students League of Los Angeles people