Tetsuo Ochikubo

Tetsuo Ochikubo (1923–1975), also known as Bob Ochikubo, was a Japanese-American painter, sculpture, and printmaker who was born in Waipahu, Hawaii, Honolulu county, Hawaii. During the Second World War, he served with the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. After being discharged from the Army, he studied painting and design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Students League of New York. He worked at Tamarind Institute in the 1960s and is best known for his entirely abstract paintings and lithographs. Along with Satoru Abe, Bumpei Akaji, Edmund Chung, Jerry T. Okimoto, James Park, and Tadashi Sato, Tetsuo Ochikubo was a member of the Metcalf Chateau, a group of seven Asian-American artists with ties to Honolulu. Ochikubo died in Kawaihae, Hawaii in 1975.

Tetsuo Ochikubo's comments on art.

"My ultimate purpose in painting is to be an artist of substance and consequence; to understand and to be understood. I am confident in my work and have progressed, sometimes painfully, surely but slowly.

I can think of nothing finer than to achieve a personality of minimum weakness, to be able to understand life in its thousands of facets, to eliminate arbitrary and contrary truth, to have the function and command of beauty at the tip of my brush. In every way, painting is the medium for achieving my ultimate purpose.

My world is unique. I understand many facets of both East and West. If this area is truly manifest, it is a genuine universal art.

I use symbols, non-symbols, and nature to achieve my artistic objectives. While creating, I express only the affection of my subconscious feeling.

Why do I paint the way I paint? This is the old question for which there is no direct answer. For example, one master said to another, 'I play with six lions.' The other replied, 'I play with one lion.' My art is for myself and no more.

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