Alley

ca. 1929

American (born in Japan), 1897–1948

While his successful business sustained him, Tokita was also a full participant in the city’s contemporary art circles during the 1920s and 1930s, regularly exhibiting with the leading artists. Marking his debut at the prestigious Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists, this painting secured him First Honorable Mention in Oil and a solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Institute (later, the Seattle Art Museum). A tableau of wooden structures and intersecting power lines crowded into a dense city block, it demonstrates Tokita’s keen sensitivity to the urban environment, as well as his command of the realism that then prevailed in American painting.

As Issei—a Japanese immigrant to the United States—Tokita experienced anti‑Japanese discrimination and was barred from US citizenship. During World War II, he was classified as a resident alien and assigned with his family to Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho, ending his promising artistic career.

Oil on canvas

20 1/2 x 16 1/2 in. (52.1 x 41.9 cm)

Gift of the artist

33.229

Photo: Paul Macapia

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Art Institute of Seattle, 15th Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists, Sept. 28 - Nov. 3, 1929.

Oakland, California, Oakland Art Gallery, California, 1930 Annual Exhibition, Mar. 23 - Apr. 23, 1930.

San Francisco, California, San Francisco Art Association, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 52nd Annual Exhibition, May 3 - June 1, 1930.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The View From Here: The Pacific Northwest 1870-1940, July 1, 2004 - Feb. 27, 2005.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Painting Seattle: Kamekichi Tokita and Kenjiro Nomura, Oct. 22, 2011 - Feb. 19, 2012.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Northwest Modernism: Four Japanese Americans, Mar. 20, 2021 - June 5, 2022.

Published ReferencesCallahan, Kenneth, "The Art Situation," Town Crier, 09/16/1933, p. 9.

Johns, Barbara, "Paul Horiuchi East and West", Universtiy of Washington Press, 2008, p. 9.

Tsutakawa, Mayumi, "A Canvas Diary: Painters Before the War," Turning Shadows Into Light: Art and Culture of the Northwest's Early Asian Pacific Community", ed. Mayumi Tsutakawa and Alan Chong Lau, Seattle: Young Pine Press, 1982, ill. p. 74.

The Seattle Review: Blue Funnel Line, Creative Writing Program, University of Washington, 1988, reproduced on cover.

Johns, Barbara. Signs of Home: The Paintings and Wartime Diary of Kamekichi Tokita, in association with Painting Seattle: Kamekichi Tokita and Kenjiro Nomura. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 2011; pp. 58-59, reproduced fig. 41.

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