“Finding Miné Okubo / 大久保 ミネ in DC”
“A picture is worth a thousand words” is certainly true for history. The mural of my grandpa and dad at Johnson Middle School tells the land’s history as a farm in the early 1900s, before and during the “Munemitsu Farms” decades. And the exhibit, “Pictures of Belonging” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC does the same for 3 Japanese American trail-blazing artists: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo. This exhibition spans 80 years of their work and showcases the work and lives of these Japanese American artists from pre-WWII, through camp, and their last works.
Decades ago, I was at a Pasadena art auction and purchased a sweet landscape of a California pasture for $200. Then I realized it was signed by M. Okuko…”THE” Miné Okubo, 大久保 ミネ, artist and author of Citizen 13660. This is the highly acclaimed graphic memoir of her life during the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans. Since then, I’ve been very interested in her life. I was recently in DC and was delighted to see this Smithsonian exhibition and learn more about her.
Miné Okubo was born in Riverside, CA on June 27, 1912. She studied at Riverside Jr. College and received a Masters of Fine Arts from UC Berkeley in 1938. Awarded the Bertha Taussig Memorial Traveling Fellowship, she traveled to France, Italy, and other parts of Europe to study in 1938-39. In Paris, she studied under the famous early 20th-century avant-garde painter Fernand Leger.
Miné Okubo, Self Portrait, 1941
Her self portrait shares more about her; friends described her as a strong personality. However, she herself claimed to be shy and self-conscious as a child. This European study trip built self confidence that would last a lifetime. Many Europeans had never seen an Asian American woman in the 1930s and would often stare at Miné. “Instead of retreating,” a friend wrote of Okubo in 1942, “she stared right back. She made a lot of friends this way, in addition to deriving a tremendous amount of self confidence.”
She returned from Europe after only 18 months in 1939 to California when her mother, also an artist, became ill and the outbreak of WWII in Europe. Upon her return, she continued work as an artist and was awarded fresco and mosaic mural commissions from the Federal Art Project at Fort Ord, Treasure Island, and the Oakland Hospitality House. She also collaborated with renowned Mexican artist Diego RIvera in San Francisco. Sadly, her mother died in 1940, just as Miné presents her solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Along with over 125,000 West Coast Japanese Americans, Miné’s world collapsed when Pearl Harbor was bombed by Imperial Japan. On April 24, 1942, just before her 30th birthday, Miné and her brother were taken and held at Tanforan Assembly Center, where racetrack horse stalls were converted with army cots, twice-daily roll calls, and a severe lack of privacy.
After 6 months, they were moved to the Topaz (UT) War Relocation Center through 1944. It was there Miné’s most famous work was born, as she made over 2,000 drawings of daily life in the camps. She was rarely without her sketchpad as she recorded images of daily life - the humiliation, the struggle, and real life behind the barbed wire of the camps. These daily drawings would become her award winning book, Citizen 13660. She also taught art to children and initiated a literary magazine, Trek at Topaz, proving beauty could be found even in the darkest times of her life.
Miné’s artistic talent was her ticket to leave the camp after two years. Fortune magazine hired her as an illustrator, likely part of the indefinite leave provision for younger American citizens to be released if they went to the Midwest or East for work. She shipped a crate of her belongings to the Fortune New York City offices, and began a new life outside the camp.
Her first published drawings were for the April 1944 special issue of Fortune’s article on Japan. It was here that she was able to publish her book in 1946, sharing her experiences as an incarcerated prisoner in her own country. The graphic novel, Citizen 13660, is titled from the number assigned to her family unit in the camps and contains nearly 200 sketches of her lived experiences.
Miné would testify in New York before the US Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians following its establishment in 1981. This process, when completed, led to the apology by the US government to the over 125,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII. Citizen 13660 — by then widely reviewed and recognized as an important reference book on WWII incarceration — has been taught by educators throughout the country on the incarceration history. Becoming nationally recognized, Okubo received numerous awards, among which included the 1984 American Book Award. In 1991, the Women's Caucus for Art awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award, and she is listed in Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary edited by Hyung-chan Kim.
She would continue to make New York City her home for the rest of her life. Miné worked as an artist and freelance illustrator for over 50 years. Although she experimented with many modern idioms, she is known primarily as an abstract painter. She continued painting until her death on February 10, 2001, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, NY at age 88.
What stands out to me most about Miné is her dedication to her art and the breadth of work she did. I posted only a few of the numerous pieces of hers in the exhibition, but from B/W sketches to her abstract works, she communicates her life and times so beautifully in many styles. One of my favorites “Boy with Fish #2” celebrates the traditional Japanese children's day, kodomo no hi, on May 5th of each year. The joyful, colorful and playfulness of her later works are summed up in this 1972 reflection where Miné said, “After all these years of struggle, it’s coming into the wholeness of life, The wholeness of yourself again.”
This is a brief list of Miné Okubo’s affiliations and places her artistic work has been exhibited.
Member of San Francisco Academy of Arts
California Watercolor Society
Golden Gate International Exhibition
San Francisco Museum of Art
Oakland Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
She was also highlighted in a play, Miné: A Name For Herself, written by Riverside authors Mary H. Curtin and Theresa Larkin.
Riverside Community College has completed curating the collection of Okubo's personal writings, sketches, and paintings and it can be viewed at the Center for Social Justice and Civil Liberties in Riverside, California.
Produced by the Japanese American National Museum, “Pictures of Belonging” will be travelling now through 2026. Be sure to see this important exhibit - Travelling exhibit dates below:
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC Now thru Aug. 17, 2025
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Oct 9,2025 to Jan. 4, 2026
Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA Feb. 5, 2026 to April 19, 2026
Japanese American National Museum, LA, CA Late 2026.
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