Chiura Obata - World War II

World War II

Obata and his wife Haruko ran an art supply store on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, from which his wife offered lessons in ikebana. The shop was the target of a gunshot after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, and eventually the Obatas were forced to close it and cancel all classes.

Executive Order 9066 led to Obata organizing a large sale of his many paintings and woodblock prints. He donated the profits from the sale to a campus student fund. University President Robert Gordon Sproul, a friend of the Obatas, offered to store many of the remaining works.

In April 1942, Obata was interned at the Tanforan detention center. By May, he and fellow artists were able to create an art school that had 600 students, entirely with their own money and with donations from the outside from friends from U.C. Berkeley. The school was so successful that they were able to exhibit the artwork outside the camp in July.

In September 1942, Obata was moved to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Topaz, Utah. There Obata was the founder and Director of The Topaz Art School, which had 16 artist/instructors who taught 23 subjects to over 600 students. During his internment, Obata made about one hundred sketches and paintings.

As director of the art school, Obata had worked closely with the intern camp administration. In the spring of 1943, with tensions high at the camp because of the signing of controversial loyalty oaths, Obata was attacked one night, ending up in the camp hospital for two weeks. He was released from Topaz immediately after he left the hospital. Obata moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri, where Gyo, one of his sons, was going to architecture school. Obata found employment there with a commercial art company.