Pictures of Belonging - by Shipu Wang (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Pictures of Belonging showcases more than one hundred objects created by Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Minâe Okubo. These trailblazing American women of Japanese descent-part of the pre-World War II generation of artists in California-were committed to exploring art as a productive means of storytelling, but their achievements are rarely recognized in the pages of American history. The book puts the artists' works in dialogue with one another for the first time-creating new conversations on citizenship, community, and agency in the historical record during an era of exclusion for Japanese Americans in particular and Asian Americans as a whole"--

Book Synopsis

This unprecedented exhibition reintroduces three trailblazing Japanese American artists of the pre-World War II generations.

Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo brings together over ninety works by three pioneering Japanese American artists from the pre-World War II era. Despite long careers and critical acclaim, Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo have largely been overlooked in traditional American art history. This groundbreaking exhibition reintroduces their work and explores their deep connections with each other for the first time.

Through three chronological sections, the exhibition traces the careers of these artists from the 1920s to the 1990s. "Faces & Communities" presents pre-World War II portraiture and figurative works, while "Belongings & (dis)Locations" showcases landscapes and still lifes from the prewar and wartime periods. The final section, "Explorations & Rediscoveries," features postwar abstractions. Pictures of Belonging foregrounds the rich and heterogeneous oeuvres of Hayakawa, Hibi, and Okubo, which spanned eight decades and four states, highlighting the diverse communities in which these trailblazing artists flourished before, during, and after World War II. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, this book shifts the spotlight from the injustice and tragedy of Japanese American incarceration toward a broader picture of the so-called American experience through the compelling, divergent lives and artworks of these women of Japanese descent.

Published by the Japanese American National Museum in association with University of California Press and with support from the Terra Foundation for American Art and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibition dates:

February 24 to June 30, 2024, at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah

November 15, 2024, to August 17, 2025, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, District of Columbia

October 2, 2025, to January 4, 2026, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

February 5, 2026, to April 19, 2026, at the Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California

Fall 2026 at the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, California

About the Author

ShiPu Wang is the Coats Family Chair in the Arts and Professor of Art History at University of California, Merced. He is a former editorial board member of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's American Art and now serves on the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Board of Commissioners. Wang is the author of Becoming American? The Art and Identity Crisis of Yasuo Kuniyoshi and The Other American Moderns: Matsura, Ishigaki, Noda, Hayakawa. Wang was also the curator and editor of Chiura Obata: An American Modern.