Arthur Okamura Art

Abstract Arthur Okamura (American, 1932-2009) Signed and Dated Lower Right 36 x 42 inches 37 x 43 inches with frame Arthur Okamura was born in Long Beach, California, February 24, 1932. He was interned at the Santa Anita Race Track "Assembly Center" soon after Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan, on December 1, 1941. After 6 months, he and his family were transferred to Amache Relocation Center in Colorado, where they lived for three years. After the war ended in 1945, Arthur and his family relocated to Chicago, Illinois. There he attended grammar school, high school and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was in Chicago that he got married and started off in his formative years as an artist. Arthur had always planned to be an artist and began working after school at a silkscreen poster studio when he was fifteen years old. He worked there for twelve years and became the main layout artist and stencil cutter. Upon graduating from the Art Insititute in 1945, he received the Edward L. Ryerson Foreign Travel Fellowship and went, with his wife, to Mallorca in the Balearic Islands to paint. It was in Mallorca that he first met Robert Creeley. Creeley became a close friend who offered him inspiration and influenced his work. Back again in Chicago in 1956, Arthur, his wife and his first child packed up their car and moved to San Francisco, at the suggestion of Arthur's Chicago art dealer, Charles Feingarten, who was opening a gallery in San Francisco. Subsequently, Feingarten opened other galleries in Carmel, Los Angeles and New York. For years Arthur Okamura painted and exhibited prodigiously. In 1959, now with four children, Arthur moved from San Francisco to Bolinas. He and his wife at that time divorced and have since remarried. In 1997 Arthur retired from teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, where he taught for 31 years. Education: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1950-54 Yale University Summer Art Seminar, 1954 University of Chicago, 1951, 1953, 1957 Teaching: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1957 Central YMCA College of Chicago, 1956, 1957 Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, 1956, 1957 North Shore Art League, Winnetka, IL, 1957 Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA, 1958 California College of Arts & Crafts, Professor of Fine Arts, 1958, 1959, 1966-1997 San Francisco Studio of Art, Director, 1958 Saugatuck Summer Art School, Saugatuck, MI, 1959, 1962 University of Utah, Guest Lecturer, 1964, 1972 Fort Wright College, Spokane, WA, 1976 University of California, Santa Cruz Humboldt State College, 1977 Watercolor Painting in Tahiti, 1987 Watercolor Painting in Bali (Sponsored by Wilderness Journeys/Art Trek & University of California, Santa Cruz), 1989, 1991 Professor Emeritus: California College of Arts & Crafts, 1997 Exhibitions: The Art Institute of Chicago Annuals, 1951-1954 Museum of Modern Art, NY, 1954 Downtown Gallery, NY Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art University of Washington, Seattle, 1955 Ravinia Art Festival, Highland Park, IL American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago Contemporary Americans, LA County Museum Art In Asia and the West, San Francisco Museum Contemporary American Painting, Art Institute of Chicago Society of Contemporary Art, Art Institute of Chicago West Coast Painters, American Federation of Art San Francisco Annual, San Francisco Museum Contemporary Americans, University of Nebraska Recent Acquisitions, Denver Museum Drawings of California Artists, Sponsored by U.S. Information Center, Berlin, Cologne, Germany, 1958-1959 New Talent, American Federation of Art, 1959 Dallas Museum of Art Fresh Paint, De Young Museum, San Francisco, 1958 Knoedler Gallery, NY, 1959 Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor 1959 Whitney Museum, NY, 1960 Sculpture and Drawing, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1961 Great by Greats, Time Life Building, NY, 1961 Whitney Annual, 1962,1963,1964 Forty Artists Under Forty, Whitney Museum, 1962 Bay Area Artists, San Francisco Museum, 1962 Recent Collections by Friends of the Whitney, Whitney Museum 1964 Ravinia Art Festival, Lake Forest, IL 1964 Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1964 Pacific Heritage, LA County Museum 1965 SECA Exhibit, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1966 Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, 1966 Painters Behind Painters, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1967 Pittsburgh International Carnegie Institute, 1967 Takashima 1970 Exposition, Osaka/Tokyo, Japan, 1970 Bay Area Art Faculties, College of Marin, 1970 Asian Artists, Oakland Museum, 1971 Imaginary Painting from S.F. California State, University of San Jose, 1972 "A Sense of Place" Exhibit, Joslyn Nebraska Art Museum, 1973 Four from CCAC, Berkeley Art Center, 1974 Falkirk Connnunity Cultural Center, San Rafael, CA, 1975 Two-Person Show with Joan Rosenbaum, Walnut Creek Art Center, 1975 "Zen Gardens", San Jose State University, 1976 Tropical Visions, St. Mary's College, 1989 Tropic Exotic, TransAmerica Pyramid, SF, 1986 "On The Trail," Claudia Chaplin Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA, 1987 "Opening Show," Bolinas Museum, 1988 "Miniature Show," Bolinas Museum, 1990 "In The Garden," Bolinas Museum, 1991 "60 Plus: Older Artists of West Marin," Bolinas Museum, 1993 Gallery Route One, Pt. Reyes Station, CA, 1993 "Sea Fever," Transamerica Pyramid, 1993 "Cats," Bolinas Museum, 1993 "With New Eyes," San Francisco State University, 1995 "As Seen At The Beach," Bolinas Museum, 1997 "Miniature Show," Bolinas Museum, 1997 Solo Exhibitions: Frank Ryan Gallery, Chicago, IL, 1953 La Boutique, Chicago, IL, 1953,1954 Feingarten Galleries, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, LA, 1956-1976 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1958 California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1961 Calhoun Gallery, Dallas, TX, 1962 University of Utah, 1964 M. Knoedler & Company, NY, 1965 Hanson Gallery, San Francisco, 1964-1968 College of Holy Names, Oakland, 1966 Drawings, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1968 Hanson Fuller Gallery, San Francisco, 1971 Govett Brewster Gallery, New Zealand, 1971 University of Southern Idaho, 1972 California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, 1972 Kent State University, Kent, OH, 1973 Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1973 Conunonweal, Bolinas, CA, 1980 Stinson Beach Art Center, 1983 Ruth Braunstein Gallery, SF, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1994 Retrospective: "Selections From a Lifetime of Art," 1995. Concurrently at the Bolinas Museum and at the Claudia Chaplin Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA "Early Paintings," Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1996 "Recent Bolinas Landscapes," Commonwealth - 20th Anniversary Celebration, Bolinas, CA, September 1996 Prizes: Religious Arts, University of Chicago, 1st Prize 1953 Contemporary American Paintings, Art Institute of Chicago, Martin Cahn Award, 1957 University of Illinois, Purchase Award 1957 79th Annual, San Francisco Museum, Schwabacher-Frey Award 1960 Whitney Museum of Art, Neysa McMein Purchase Award 1960 National Society of Arts & Letters, New York, $1,500 Purchase Award San Francisco Art Commission, Purchase Prize 1976 Public Collections: Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago Santa Barbara Museum Art Institute of Chicago Whitney Museum of Art San Francisco Museum of Art University of Illinois Borg Warner Collection, Chicago, IL Phoenix Art Museum Illinois State Normal Container Corporation of America National Society of Arts and Letters Johnson Wax Collection Joseph Hirschhorn Collection U.S. Steel Service Institute Corcoran Museum Whitney Museum Miles Laboratory Auchenbach Foundation California Palace of the Legion of Honor California College of Arts & Crafts Kalamazoo College National Collection of Fine Arts Smithsonian Institution Illinois Bell...

Arthur Okamura Untitled (In the Shadows), circa 1950 Signed lower right and on the reverse Oil on canvas 50 x 38 inches Arthur Okamura was born in Long Beach, California, February 2...

Arthur Okamura (American, 1932-2009) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale and the University of Chicago. Establishing himself in the Bolinas art community near San Fransisco...

Arthur Okamura (American, 1932-2009) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale and the University of Chicago. Establishing himself in the Bolinas art community near San Fransisco...

Signed & dated lower right, "Okamura '59" Provenance: Engel Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel, 1967; Joseph Mayer, Highland Park, IL; by descent, Private collect...

Arthur Okamura (1932-2009). Nude on Rock, 1967. Watercolor on paper, 8 x 10 inches; 10 x 12 inches framed. Signed and dated lower left. Excellent condition with no fading or conserva...

Already a rising star in the art world, Arthur Okamura painted this portrait of a blonde, blue-eyed sailor in 1955 when he was only 23, only a year after being exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and after being included in the Art Institute of Chicago's Annuals between 1951 and 1954. Okamura had countless solo exhibitions, and his work is owned by the Whitney, the Smithsonian and the Art Institute of Chicago, among many other museums. Best known today for his abstract work, this early painting...