‘JAPANESE’--IMAGES THAT SURVIVED RELOCATION

The pictures in “Japanese Photography in America, 1920-1940,” an exhibition at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (through June 1), are survivors.

After March 30, 1942, when it became illegal for anyone of Japanese ancestry to possess a camera in the United States, most of the pre-World War II work of Japanese-American photographers was lost or destroyed. Some images were safely stored throughout the relocation period only to go up in flames set by vigilantes who did not want the Japanese-Americans to return to their homes in Southern California.

The photographs that endured the war--and Japanese-Americans’ incarceration in relocation centers--sat it out in cellars and closets. The work of Hiromu Kira, now 88, was stored in the basement of the Nishi Hongwanji, a Buddhist temple in Little Toyko. J. T. Sata (1896-1975) left his single trunk of belongings, including photographs, in the home of sympathetic strangers. T. Mukai (1899-1979) lost his work in one of the fires, but two prints he had traded with a fellow photographer lasted.

Measured against the human cost of the war, the loss of photographs is trivial but sadly symbolic of the hysteria that raged here against people of Japanese ancestry after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And, as the surviving art has come to light and found its niche in the history of American photography, it has become increasingly apparent that an important chapter was nearly obliterated.

In Los Angeles, that chapter has been written almost single-handedly by Dennis Reed, gallery director at Los Angeles Valley College. As guest curator of the exhibition at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center and author of an accompanying illustrated catalogue (with text in both Japanese and English), Reed has gone public with his private passion, giving it a temporary visual display and a permanent record.

“Finally,” he said, with a mixture of pride and relief, explaining that the project has been about six years in progress. “I had started to collect photography and I was looking through the drawers in Stephen White’s old gallery on La Cienega when I saw one of Shigemi Uyeda’s images from the ‘20s. I knew nothing about him, but his work looked so contemporary.”

White told Reed about a community of creative and accomplished Japanese-American photographers who lived and worked in Los Angeles between the two world wars. Reed began to do research on the subject but didn’t get far until White put him in touch with Kira, whose clean compositions of glass cylinders, origami birds and curved stairways are one of the quietly assured strengths of the low-key exhibition.

Reed also credits historian Tom Jacobson in San Diego and Robert D. Monroe in Seattle for their assistance. But Reed himself doggedly pursued his project, digging through photography publications, exhibition records and reviews. As he discovered the name of a long-forgotten photographer, he would ferret out information on him by calling everyone with the same surname who was listed in the telephone directory.

Reed’s inquiries were greeted with indifference, reticence, joy and, in one case, a wheelbarrow-load of photographs. He eventually identified 180 photographers, about half of them from Los Angeles. The 64 images by 31 photographers selected for the show are on loan from galleries, museums, private collections and the artists’ families.

Reed staged a similar exhibition a few years ago at Los Angeles Valley College. The current show has been extended beyond Los Angeles to include small groups of work by Japanese-American photographers in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Hawaii.

Most of the exhibited images exemplify a Pictorialist attitude, coming as they do from a period when photographers were still trying to prove their medium was an art form. Bent on making beautiful pictures, the Japanese-American photographers infused their soft-focus images of nature and pastoral subjects with romantic atmosphere. In doing so, they emulated their non-Japanese counterparts, but they also incorporated their cultural heritage.

Occasional people in Japanese dress appear, but equally telling are the influence of Japanese woodcuts and a distinctive treatment of space. These photographers placed a “decorative” emphasis on line, shadow and pattern. They also defied traditional perspective by tipping their cameras down from high vantage points and cropping close-ups. The most forward-looking of their groups worked with Cubist ideas in faceted abstractions and still lifes that still look freshly considered.

Most of the photographers made their living at other jobs and banded together during their off hours in camera clubs that sponsored publications and exhibitions, sometimes international ones.

Despite their small numbers, the Japanese-American artists were very successful. As Reed points out in a catalogue reference to the 1928 American Annual of Photography, the photographers exhibited more than twice as many pictures in 1927 as did non-Japanese artists. Some of the Japanese-Americans were influenced by Edward Weston, who noted in his day books that he got a warmer reception (more sales, recognition and opportunities to show his work) from them than from other Los Angeles residents.

The Japanese-Americans also had their critics. The most strident was F. C. Tilney, who wrote for American Photography. According to the catalogue, he called their predilection for high viewpoints, shadows and patterns “cute” and “queer” and warned against this “plague” that was spreading through photography.

He needn’t have worried; the “plague” was eradicated all too quickly. When the Japanese-American photographers were released from relocation centers, few had the means to do more than scratch out a living. Fortunately, the evidence of their achievement is so convincing that future surveys of West Coast photography history cannot omit it.