Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience

Kristine Kim with an introduction by Karin Higa; Foreword by Lawrence M. Small; Epilogue by Madeleine Sugimoto; Translations by Emily Anderson

First-ever survey of this remarkable artist

Henry Sugimoto began life as the grandson of a displaced samurai and died in 1990 an American painter. From his early years in California, Paris, and Mexico to the transformative impact of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, Sugimoto’s art became a vivid expression of the American immigrant experience.

Henry Sugimoto is the first-ever survey of this relatively unknown but remarkable artist. From the early work influenced by the European impressionists and post-impressionists to the later work that extensively documents and interprets the experiences of Japanese Americans behind barbed wire, this is a stunning body of work.

Published in conjunction with the Japanese American National Museum

Reviews

“Sugimoto had been a rising artist, trained in France and known as a painter of the placid fields and lush landscapes of rural California...His internment at two camps in Arkansas left him melancholy...but also gave his work depth and poignancy.”

—New York Times

 

“Drawing on his camp experiences, Sugimoto created a body of work that is poignant, even heartbreaking, sometimes angry, always resonant—but the artwork that focuses on the ordeal of the internment offers a vision that is uniquely his own.”

—Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Kristine Kim

Kristine Kim is associate curator at the Japanese American National Museum, where she previously organized the exhibition A Process of Reflection: Paintings by Hisako Hibi. She received a B.A. from Mills College in 1994 and is currently completing graduate work in the department of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on twentieth-century art and Asian American artists.
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