Chiura Obata
| Chiura Obata | |
|---|---|
Professor Obata painting in 1944
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| Born |
Zoroku Sato November 18, 1885 Okayama, Japan |
| Died | October 6, 1975 (aged 89) Berkeley, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Painter, professor |
| Years active | 1899–1975 |
| Spouse(s) | Haruko Kohashi (1892–1989; m. 1912) |
| Children | Kimio George (son, 1912–1986); Fujiko (daughter, 1915–?); Gyo (son, b.1923); Lillian Yuri (daughter, b.1927) |
| Notes | |
Chiura Obata (小圃 千浦 Obata Chiura?, November 18, 1885 – October 6, 1975) was a well-known Japanese-American artist and popular art teacher. A self-described "roughneck", Obata went to the United States in 1903, at age 17. After initially working as an illustrator and commercial decorator, he had a successful career as a painter, following a 1927 summer spent in the Sierra Nevada, and was a faculty member in the Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1932 to 1954, interrupted by World War II, when he spent over a year in internment camps. After his retirement, he continued to paint and to lead group tours to Japan to see gardens and art.
Obata was born in 1885 in Okayama prefecture in Japan. He was the youngest of a very large family. At the age of five, he showed a natural inclination for drawing. He was then adopted by his older brother, Rokuichi, who was himself an artist. At the age of seven he began his formal training by a master painter in the art of sumi-e, Japanese ink and brush painting.
At the age of 14, Obata ran away from home to avoid being put into military school. In Tokyo, he became apprenticed to the painter Tanryo Murata for three years. He also studied with Kogyo Terasaki and Goho Hasimoto. He was trained in Western as well as Japanese art, painting throughout his life in the Western manner. Shortly after he finished his apprenticeship, he received a prestigious art award in Tokyo.
In 1903, Obata left for the United States. He arrived in Seattle, where he planned to study American art before continuing to Paris to study European art. When he got to San Francisco, he found work as a domestic servant in a household, with the pay of $1.50 per week plus room and board. He was one of the founders of the Fuji Club, the first Japanese-American baseball team on the American mainland. In 1906, Obata made on-site sketches of the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake. In 1909 he worked in the hops fields in the Sacramento Valley.
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