Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter born in 1893 in Okayama, Japan who lived from 1906-1953 in the United States. He studied art in Los Angeles and New York and established himself as an internationally renowned painter and graphic artist by 1930. During World War II, he created war posters and radio scripts to support the U.S. war effort. His artwork explored his complex identity and experience of racism as a Japanese man in America. Key paintings include "I'm Tired" (1938) and "Somebody Tore My Poster" (1943).

1. Yasuo Kuniyoshi

2. What do you know about him?

3. Biographic Information
• Born in Okayama, Japan
• Years: 1893-1953
• 1906: moved to the United States
• 1910: moved to New York
• Schooling: Los Angeles School of Art and Design
National Academy of Design
Independent School of Art
*Art Students League

4. More Biographic Information
• By 1930, he had established himself as an
internationally-known painter and graphic
artist
• First president of the Artists’ Equity
Association (1947-1950)
• First wife: Katherine Schmidt, Second wife
Sara Mazo, who survived him and preserved
his art

5. Why is he important?

6. WWII Involvement
• War posters and illustrations, radio scripts,
broadcasts

7. Citizenship
• Was Kuniyoshi turning his back on Japan?
– Becoming American suggests he was trying to
prove loyalty, not bash the other side (15-16)

8. What it Means to be Japanese in
the United States
• Identity Crisis
– Saw self as American and strongly believed in
democracy, but Americans saw him as Oriental
(Correspondences 3 and 4)
– 1919: Kuniyoshi’s wife loses U.S. citizenship
– 1922: Supreme Court ruling prohibiting Japanese
from becoming U.S. citizens
– 1924: Johnson-Reed Act prohibiting the
immigration of Japanese to America

9. Artwork
• Lithographs, paint
• Circus girls, nudes
• Still lifes, landscapes

10. More Artwork
“I’m Tired” (1938)

11. Pre-War Work
• Isolated, foreboding characters
• Neither content-driven nor visually
confrontational
• Picasso (1881-1973)

12. “Somebody Tore My Poster”(1943)

13. How Do These Two Paintings Differ?

14. Differences Between Two Paintings
• Use of space?
– Shading and texture
– Flattening of space in Somebody Tore My Poster
foregrounds both the figure and the poster,
suggesting that they are equally important to the
painting’s meaning
– Often Kuniyoshi painted his figures with smooth
and subtle shading that contrasts with his swifter
brushstrokes in the background

15. Now Consider: Somebody and At
Work (1943)

16. Artists in Wartime
• Role of artists: ignore war and keep painting
or work at defense factory?
(pictures=public/active vs. private/away from
world)
• Kuniyoshi: “ as a ‘member of the world,’ the
artist should continue to make art and
contribute all one can to help ‘destroy the
forces that are menacing its [the world’s]
existence” (Wang, 14)

17. Defining the Artist
• How do you define Kuniyoshi?
– Self-identification (USA) or external perception
(JPN)
• How do you define “American”?
• How does art work in depicting
Americanness?
– Becoming American suggests that artists are not
imitators or “assimilators” but are “critical
participants” who “deploy art as a vital means to
interrogate, interpret, and re-imagine
‘Americanness’” p. 9

18. Places You Can View His Art:
Okayama, Japan
Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York
Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki (Japan)

19. Sources
• http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/viewer/yasuo-k
(First picture of Kuniyoshi_8/27/12_4:52p.m.)
• http://www.pbase.com/omoses/image/61501
619 (Second picture of
Kuniyoshi_8/27/12_4:54p.m.)
• http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/yasuo-
kuniyoshi-papers-9175/more#biohist
(8/27/12)

20. Sources
• http://www.art-
it.asia/u/admin_ed_contri7/BxwlnzKUW50Tyc
M2tXjF (Kuniyoshi and WWII_8/27/12)
• http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/
artwork/?id=14109 (Strong Woman and Child
Picture, The Cyclist_8/28/12)
• http://faculty.baruch.cuny.edu/glevin/Article
%201.pdf (8/28/12)

21. More Sources
• http://blog.oricon.co.jp/kinren/archive/102/0
• http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/art
ists/kuniyoshi.php
• Wang, ShiPu. Becoming American? The Art
and Identity Crisis of Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
Honolulu: University of Hawai`I Press, 2011.
Book.
• Kuniyoshi, Yasuo. Yasuo Kuniyoshi. New York:
American Artists Group, Incorporated, 1945.
Book.