Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a painter and printmaker, born in Okayama, Japan on September 1, 1889.  He immigrated to the United States in 1906, where he lived in Los Angeles and studied at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design before moving to New York in 1910. There, he studied at at the School of the National Academy of Design, then at the Art Students League. He exhibited in the 1917 exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists.  His work was noticed by Hamilton Easter Field a critic, collector and patron of the arts who had a great influence on the artist.

Kuniyoshi had is first single artist exhibition at the Daniel Gallery in 1922, and his work was exhibited by the Downtown Gallery during the 1930's.  In 1929 he and his wife built a home in Woodstock, New York where he summered for the rest of his life.  During WWII, like many Japanese-Americans, he was listed as an enemy alien and had is assets frozen.  Even with this issue he did propaganda work during the war to support the US effort.  He was the first living artist to get a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1948 and represented the United States at the 26th Venice Biennale along with Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis and Edward Hopper. His work can be found in numerous American and Japanese museums.