Roy Kenzie Kiyooka (January 18, 1926January 8, 1994) was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

painter, poet, photographer, arts teacher.

Biography

Nisei is a Japanese language, Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the nikkeijin, ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants, or . The , or Second generation imm ...

, or a second generation

Japanese Canadian are Canadians, Canadian citizens of Japanese people, Japanese ancestry. Japanese Canadians are mostly concentrated in Western Canada, especially in the province of Japanese Canadians in British Columbia, British Columbia, which hosts the largest ...

, Roy Kenzie Kiyooka was born in

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Moose Jaw is the List of cities in Saskatchewan, fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. Lying on the Moose Jaw River in the south-central part of the province, it is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Regina, Saskatchewan, Re ...

and raised in

Calgary, Alberta Calgary () is a major city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a Metropolitan area, metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the List of ...

. His parents were Harry Shigekiyo Kiyooka and Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka. Roy's grandfather on the maternal side, a

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

Ōe Masamichi, was the 17th headmaster of the

Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū is a Japanese sword art school and one of the most widely practiced schools of iai in the world. Often referred to simply as "Eishin-ryū," it claims an unbroken lineage dating back from the sixteenth century to the early 20th century. 17th un ...

school of swordsmanship. Roy Kiyooka's brother Harry Mitsuo Kiyooka also became an abstract painter, a professor of art, and sometimes a curator of his brother's work. Roy's youngest brother Frank Kiyooka became a potter. In 1942, after the bombing of

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

, the family moved to Opal, Alberta. From 1946 to 1949, Kiyooka studied with at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art. In 1955, he studied at the

Instituto Allende The Instituto Allende is a visual arts school in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The institute provides a range of courses, and offers a BA in Visual Arts and an MA in Fine arts in association with the Universidad de Guanajuato. Its courses and d ...

San Miguel de Allende San Miguel de Allende () is the principal city in the Municipalities of Mexico, municipality of San Miguel de Allende (municipality), San Miguel de Allende, located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico. A part of the Bajío region, the t ...

. From 1957 to 1959, Kiyooka took part in the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops of the

University of Saskatchewan The University of Saskatchewan (U of S, or USask) is a Universities in Canada, Canadian public university, public research university, founded on March 19, 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatch ...

, where he worked with famed art American critic

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

and abstract expressionist painter

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American painter. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense ...

. In 1956, Kiyooka began teaching at the Regina College of Art. He moved to Vancouver in 1959, and began to shift his practice away from painting and towards photography and eventually filmmaking. In 1971-1972 he taught at the

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), is a public university, public art school, art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution tha ...

in Halifax; he documented his trip across the country to Halifax in the work ''Long Beach BC to Peggy’s Cove Nova Scotia,'' which formed part of his 1975 ''Transcanada Letters''. From 1973 to 1991, he also taught at the Fine Arts Department of the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

in Vancouver. Kiyooka used the ellipse form in the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

's ''Barometer No. 2'' (1964). In 1965, he represented Canada at the Eighth Sao Paulo Biennial. In 1969, he created the sculpture, ''Abu Ben Adam’s Vinyl Dream'', for the Canadian pavilion at Expo ‘70 in Osaka, Japan. In 1975, the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Fr ...

organized a twenty-five-year

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in software development, popular culture, and the arts. ...

of his work. That same year saw Kiyooka publish his ''Transcanada Letters,'' a book project which weaved together photography, his own letters and experimental writing to examine his experience of the nation as a second-generation Japanese-Canadian. In 1978, he was named an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

. ''Kiyooka’s Pear Tree Pomes,'' illustrated by David Bolduc (Coach House Press, 1987), was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award. While in Japan, he made the ''StoneDGloves: Alms for Soft Palms'' photographic series, shown at the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

in Ottawa. He also made''16 Cedar Laminated Sculpture'' series, shown alongside the ''Ottoman/Court Suite'' of silk-screen prints, at the Bau Xi Gallery in Vancouver in May 1971.

Books

*''Kyoto Airs''. designed and printed by

Takao Tanabe Takao Tanabe, (born 16 September 1926) is a Canadian artist who painted abstractly for decades, but over time, his paintings became nature-based. Biography Born Takao Izumi in Seal Cove, today part of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, the son o ...

at Periwinkle Press, Vancouver 1964. (Inspired by a visit to Japan in 1963). *

Dorothy Livesay Dorothy Kathleen May Livesay, (October 12, 1909 – December 29, 1996) was a Canadian poet who twice won the Governor General's Award in the 1940s, and was "senior woman writer in Canada" during the 1970s and 1980s.Mathews, R.D.. "Dorothy L ...

: ''The Unquiet Bed''. Illustrations by Roy Kiyooka. *''Nevertheless These Eyes''. Printed at the Coach House Press, Toronto 1967. *''The Fountainebleau Dream Machine: 18 Frames from A Book of Rhetorick''. Coach House Press, Toronto 1977 *“Wheels, a trip thru Honshu’s Backcountry” was published by Coach House Press, Toronto 1981. *''StoneDGloves''. Coach House Press, Toronto 1970. Repr.: 1983. *''transcanada letters''. Talonbooks, Vancouver 1975. Repr.: 2004. *''Pear Tree Pomes'' 1987. Illus. by David Bolduc. Coach House Press, Toronto 1987. Nominated for the 1987 Governor General Award. Books published posthumously include: * Daphne Marlatt (ed.): ''Mothertalk: Life Stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka''. NeWest Press, Edmonton 1997. Roy Kiyooka's mother, Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka's, story from a series of interviews by Matsuki Masutani and reworked by Roy Kiyooka. *

Roy Miki Roy Akira Miki (10 October 1942 – 5 October 2024) was a Canadian poet, scholar, editor, and activist most known for his social and literary work. Life and career Born in Ste. Agathe, Manitoba to second generation Japanese-Canadian parents, ...

(ed.): ''Pacific Windows: Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka''. Talonbooks, Burnaby, B.C. 1997. *Smaro Kambourelli (ed.): ''Pacific Rim Letters''. NeWest Press, Edmonton 2004. *Roy Miki (ed.): Roy Kiyooka: ''The Artist & the Moose: A Fable of Forget''. LINEbooks, Burnaby, B.C., 2009.

Exhibitions

''Roy Kiyooka: Accidental Tourist'' ( Doris McCarthy Gallery, Scarborough, Ont), 17–22 March 2005. ''Roy K. Kiyooka: 25 Years'' (

, Vancouver, BC), 21 November-16 December 1976.

Awards

* 1973 Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award

References

Bibliography

* Kent Lewis: ''Kiyooka, Roy Kenzie''. In: William H. New (editor): ''The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada'', University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2002, p. 582f * * National Film Board of Canada. ''B.C. Almanac(h) C-B.'' Vancouver: Presentation House Gallery, Reprint edition, 2015 (1970). * John O'Brian, Naomi Sawada, Scott Watson (ed.): ''All Amazed: For Roy Kiyooka''. Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, B.C., with Belkin Gallery, 2002 *Michael Ondaatje (ed.): "The Long Poem Anthology", 1979 *Vancouver Art Gallery: ''Roy K. Kiyooka: 25 Years'', 1975 * Woloshyn, Alexa. �
Playing with the Voice and Blurring Boundaries in Hildegard Westerkamp’s “MotherVoiceTalk”
” ''eContact! 14.4 — TES 2011: Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium / Symposium électroacoustique de Toronto'' (March 2013). Montréal: CEC.

External links

Roy Kiyooka at The Encyclopedia of SaskatchewanRoy Kenzie Kiyooka
at BC Bookworld
All Amazed: For Roy KiyookaRecords of Roy Kiyooka are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books

at the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections
Kiyooka
item at English-Canadian writers,

Athabasca University Athabasca University (AU) is a Canadian public university that primarily operates through online distance education. Founded in 1970, it is one of four comprehensive academic and research universities in Alberta, and was the first Canadian ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiyooka, Roy 1926 births 1994 deaths 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters Canadian photographers 20th-century Canadian poets 20th-century Canadian male writers Canadian male poets Officers of the Order of Canada Canadian writers of Asian descent Canadian people of Japanese descent Artists from Calgary Poets from Calgary Poets from Saskatchewan Artists from Saskatchewan People from Moose Jaw Instituto Allende alumni Academic staff of NSCAD University Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Canadian abstract artists 20th-century Canadian male artists