Chiura Obata - Initial Successes

Initial Successes

In 1928, after his father's death, Obata returned to Japan. There he supervised the production of 35 colored woodblock prints of California landscapes for his "World Landscape Series", the majority of which are views of Yosemite National Park in California. Published in limited editions of 100 by the Takamizawa Print Works in Japan, the prints were exhibited at the Eighty-Seventh Annual Exhibition at Ueno Park in Tokyo in 1930 and his painting of Lake Basin in the High Sierra won first prize. He left Tokyo shortly thereafter.

Beginning in 1930, Obata had many very successful exhibitions in California. One, in 1931 at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, was a large exhibit of both his work and the work of his brother, Rokuichi.

In 1932 Obata was appointed as an instructor in the Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Between 1930 and 1941, one-man exhibitions were held in numerous locations.