Tsutomu "Jimmy" Mirikitani (June 15, 1920 – October 21, 2012) was an American artist notable as the subject of the 2006 documentary film ''

The Cats of Mirikitani ''The Cats of Mirikitani'' is a 2006 documentary film. Synopsis In 2001, Japanese American painter Jimmy Mirikitani (born Tsutomu Mirikitani), over 80 years old, was living on the streets of lower Manhattan. Filmmaker Linda Hattendorf took an in ...

''.

Biography

Mirikitani was born June 15, 1920, in

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

. By age 4, his family had moved to

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. He returned to the US shortly before the US entered World War II, and as a result he was sent to the

Tule Lake Tule Lake ( ) is an intermittent lake covering an area of , long and across, in northeastern Siskiyou County and northwestern Modoc County in California, along the border with Oregon. Geography Tule Lake is fed by the Lost River. The ele ...

internment camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

. In the decades after the war, he worked a series of odd jobs until the early 1950s, when he wound up unemployed and homeless in New York City. Here he began producing brightly colored drawings with ballpoint pen or colored pencil and selling them in parks. When an art professor found him sleeping in the

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

library, he referred Mirikitani to the New York Buddhist Church, who provided him with housing. During this time, he obtained employment as a cook and met

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

at a restaurant in

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

. He eventually became a live-in cook for a wealthy benefactor living on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a boulevard in New York City that carries north and southbound traffic in the borough (New York City), boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the wes ...

, but when this person died in the late 1980s he again became homeless. In 2001, he met filmmaker Linda Hattendorf, who purchased some of his art and began filming him. Eventually her content became the 2006 documentary film The Cats of Mirikitani, which outlines Mirikitani's life and covers his artwork. After the film's release, Mirikitani's first solo exhibition was organized by the

Wing Luke Asian Museum The Wing Luke Museum is a museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, which focuses on the culture, art and history of Asian Pacific Americans. It is located in the city's Chinatown-International District. Established in 1967, the museum is a ...

of Seattle; it then traveled to the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, the

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public university, public research university located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its main campus is in Denton, Texas, Denton, with a satellite campus in Frisco, Texas, Frisco. It serves as the ...

, and Portland's Nikkei Legacy Center, among others. In 2010 his work was featured in an exhibit of Japanese American Internment Camp artwork at the Smithsonian's

Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that ...

. In 2011, his work was featured at the Japanese Canadian National Museum. In 2023, his works were displayed in Snoqualmie City Hall on loan from the Wing Luke Museum, which is the first art gallery at the hall since the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

Japanese-American internees American artists of Japanese descent Artists from Sacramento, California American homeless people 1920 births 2012 deaths {{US-artist-stub