Matsumi "Mike" Kanemitsu (May 28, 1922- May 11, 1992) was a Japanese-American painter who was also proficient in Japanese style ''sumi'' and

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

Early life

Kanemitsu was born to Japanese parents in

Ogden, Utah Ogden ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the United States Census ...

on May 28, 1922. At age three, he was taken to Japan and grew up in a suburb of

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 ...

with his grandparents. He returned to the United States in 1940 and enlisted in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

in 1941 at

Fort Douglas Fort Douglas (initially called Camp Douglas) was established in October 1862, during the American Civil War, as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah. Its purpose was to protect the overland mail route and te ...

, at which point he renounced his Japanese citizenship and became solely an American citizen.Nordland, Gerald. "Matsumi Kanemitsu: The Man and His Work." In ''Kanemitsu, Matsumi'', ed. Osaka Prefectural Government, 176-180. Osaka: Osaka-fu, 1998 He was arrested after 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

interned 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 ...

. While interned, he began drawing with supplies provided by the

American Red Cross The American National Red Cross is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Humanitarianism, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. Clara Barton founded ...

. After his release, Kanemitsu enlisted in the Army and served as a hospital assistant in Europe.

Career

In 1946, Kanemitsu was discharged from the Army and undertook formal art education with

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

in Paris, with Karl Metzler in Baltimore, and with

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Early life Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889, in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906 at 17, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi ...

at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

beginning in 1951.Slivka, Rose C.S. "Matsumi Kanemitsu: A Memoir, A History, and A Tribute." In ''Kanemitsu, Matsumi'', ed. Osaka Prefectural Government, 181-184. Osaka: Osaka-fu, 1998. Among the jobs he took to support himself while in art school was a position as director of entertainment in a Baltimore gambling hall, where he oversaw the striptease dancers. Though he painted representational works in the early 1950s, Kanemitsu is generally considered a second-generation

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

. Later in the 1950s, with the support of

Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

and

Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for h ...

, he was able to show his work at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, and the Radich Gallery. He is best known for his non-objective paintings, which are often

hard-edge Hard-edge painting (also referred to as Hard Edge or Hard-edged) is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas often consist of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstrac ...

. While at the Art Students League he associated with artists such as Paul Jenkins, Warren Brandt,

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 ...

Lee Krasner Lenore "Lee" Krasner (born Lena Krassner; October 27, 1908 – June 19, 1984) was an American painter and visual artist active primarily in New York whose work has been associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. She received her ear ...

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

Willem Willem () is a Dutch name, Dutch and West Frisian language, West FrisianRienk de Haan, ''Fryske Foarnammen'', Leeuwarden, 2002 (Friese Pers Boekerij), , p. 158. masculine given name. The name is Germanic languages, Germanic, and can be seen as the ...

and

Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning ( , ; ; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial ...

, and others. By 1958 he was firmly entrenched in

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

and was close with Norman Bluhm. In the 1950s and early 60s he received two Longview Foundation awards and a

Ford Foundation Fellowship The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

to practice lithography at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles

He moved to Los Angeles in 1961, in part due to his dislike of the rise of Pop Art in New York, and was on the faculty of

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Chouinard, Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake, Los Angeles, Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt Disney, Walt and ...

from 1965 to 1970,

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

from 1970 to 1971, and the

Otis College of Art and Design Otis College of Art and Design is a private 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 located in the former IBM Aero ...

from 1971 to 1983. In 1990, along with fellow artist Nancy Uyemura and two dealers from Japan, he opened Gallery IV, which showed both local Los Angeles artists and Japanese artists.Uyemura, Nancy. "Kanemitsu: An Artist's Artist." In ''Kanemitsu, Matsumi'', ed. Osaka Prefectural Government, 185-186. Osaka: Osaka-fu, 1998. Kanemitsu died of lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles on May 11, 1992.

Legacy

In 2018, Kanemitsu's former home at 800 Traction Avenue in Los Angeles was set to be landmarked by the city, but controversy erupted over the erasure of its history as the home of a number of Japanese-American artists, including Kanemitsu. Kanemitsu's work is represented by

Louis Stern Fine Arts Louis Stern Fine Arts is an art gallery located at 9002 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, California, in the heart of the city’s Avenue of Art and Design. History and development Louis Stern Fine Arts was founded in 1988 by Louis Stern, a s ...

Selected Public Collections

* Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois * Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland * Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, Claremont, California * Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley, California * Cincinnati Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio * Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan * Grunewald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, California * Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, Hiroshima, Japan * Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan * Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana * Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois * Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California * Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, Wisconsin * Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York * Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California * Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan * Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York * National Gallery of Art, Canberra, Australia * National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. * National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan * National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan * National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Wales * New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico * Norah Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, University of Utah, Logan, Utah * Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, California * Oklahoma City Art Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California * Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. * Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California

References

* Brown, Michael D., ''Views from Asian California 1920–1965, An Illustrated History'', San Francisco, Michael D. Brown, 1992 * Yamaki Art Gallery, ''Matsumi Kanemitsu Lithographs 1961–1990'', Osaka, Yamaki Art Gallery, 1990 * Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, ''Matsumi Kanemitsu, Works in Black and White, 1958–1988'', Los Angeles, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, 1988 * Nordland, Gerald, ''Matsumi Kanemitsu (1922-1992) A Retrospective'', Beverly Hills Louis Newman Galleries, 1993 * Uyemura, Nancy, "Portrait of an Artist", ''Tozai Times'', issue 51, December 1988

Footnotes

External links

* Matsumi Kanemitsu website via

: https://www.matsumikanemitsu.com/ * Matsumi Kanemitsu on

ArtNet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City. It is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly-traded company based in Berlin that is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Ex ...

: http://www.artnet.com/artists/matsumi-kanemitsu/ * Matsumi Kanemitsu at the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/matsumi-kanemitsu-2540 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kanemitsu, Matsumi 20th-century American painters Modern painters American artists of Japanese descent Artists from Ogden, Utah 20th-century American printmakers 1922 births 1992 deaths American expatriates in Japan United States Army personnel of World War II