Weekend Edition, May 22-23, 2021 – A GROUP OF ARTISTS NOT RECOGNIZED DURING THEIR TIME

By admin

WEEKEND, MAY 22-23, 2021

The 370th Edition

DONG KINGMAN

AND 

ASIAN-AMERICAN

WPA

ARTISTS

SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM

Dong Kingman, Bridge over River, 1936, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.189
When I stumbled upon Dong Kingman’s Bridge over River (1936), the gleaming sliver towers of a yet-to-be-finished Bay Bridge transported me home. Much of my childhood was spent on that bridge, shuttling back and forth between my grandparents’ home in San Francisco and mine in Oakland. I hunched over my computer screen, greedily drinking in every inch of Kingman’s watercolor and yearning for the omurice or chawanmushi that my grandmother would inevitably have waiting for me at the end of my journey across the bridge.

Dong Kingman was an outstanding watercolorist, who, in addition to teaching art at Columbia University and Hunter College, worked for decades as an illustrator in Hollywood, designing set backgrounds for scores of blockbuster films. He also served as a cultural ambassador and international lecturer for the U.S. Department of State. In 1936 Kingman was hired as an artist to work under the auspices of the Federal Arts Project (FAP), The FAP was a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) dedicated to financially supporting thousands of artists across the country who were struggling under the economic and social turmoil of the Great Depression. Yet as with many of the relief programs created by the Roosevelt Administration—from Social Security to Unemployment Insurance—the benefits were unequally distributed. White men benefited most, often at the exclusion of women and people of color. This pattern of exclusion held for many of the federal arts programs.

Kingman was one of the few known Asian American artists to be hired by the WPA. The astounding absence of Asian American artists relative to their white counterparts can be in part explained by the requirement of citizenship, which became a prerequisite for employment by the WPA in 1937, two years after the program’s founding. The histories of Asian Americans are marked by exclusion, most obvious of which is the century-long denial of citizenship for Asian immigrants. Significantly, SAAM’s collection includes the works of other Asian American artists employed by the WPA, most of whom worked for the program before the citizenship requirement was adopted. These artists include Bumpei Usui, Fugi Nakamizo, Isamu Noguchi, Chee Chin S. Cheung Lee, Kenjiro Nomura, Sakari Suzuki, Chuzo Tamotzu, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Both Kingman and Noguchi were born in the United States and were thus able to continue to work for the WPA even after the citizenship requirement was adopted by the agency.

To say that I stumbled upon Kingman’s work is not precise; it implies that I encountered it by happenstance. Since coming to SAAM last year as a Luce Curatorial Fellow, I have constantly searched the collection for the presence and the traces of Asian American makers. I do this not because I hope to find the “me stories” in SAAM’s collection (although that is certainly true), but because I know that the histories of Asian American artists open spaces for critical interrogation. These histories unsettle the tidy stories of American art — a sweeping narrative, dominated by a few artistic geniuses, who are always white and always men, that unfolds from the beautiful landscapes of Albert Bierstadt to sublime color fields of Barnett Newman. These are the histories I learned in college and graduate school and the ones I am trying to grapple with now. I am trying to think beyond and refuse the logics and instructions of art history that taught me what to value as beautiful and who and what to prioritize as subjects worthy of scholarly inquiry.

My abiding companions in this rethinking— the scholars Lisa Lowe, Mae Ngai, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Michael Omi, Gary Okihiro, Manu Karuka— have helped me understand that absent a deep and layered study of our history, we cannot begin to understand the histories of American and global capitalism, the nature of American imperialism and militarism or how logics of democracy, citizenship, and immigration function in the United States. Studying Kingman and the other Asian American artists of the WPA is not merely about adding them into an existing canon of New Deal artists. The immense joy I find in studying these artists is in the myriad ways their work unsettles our understanding of artistic production during the New Deal period, illuminating the complexities, contradictions, and conflicts that reside at the heart of the stories of American art.

Grace Yasumura, the Luce Curatorial Fellow, earned her Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from the University of Maryland in 2019. Her dissertation examined the different ways racialized identities were created and contested in New Deal post office mural

Bumpei Usui, Dahlias, 1938, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from General Services Administration, 1971.447.90

Bumpei Usui, Portrait of Yasuo Kuniyoshi in His Studio, 1930, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Regis Corporation, 1984.92

Fugi Nakamizo, Central Park Plaza, ca. 1940, watercolor on paper mounted on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.251

Fugi Nakamizo, Clown Elephants, 1940, watercolor, brush and ink, crayon and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.293

Chee Chin S. Cheung Lee, Portsmouth Square, 1936, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Jean Nichols, 1974.38.44

Kenjiro Nomura, The Farm, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.36

A farm scene with green trees would seem to be a positive view of the American scene, but Kenjiro Nomura’s painting suggests a hidden threat. Clouds gather and darkness fills the barn and sheds while the foreground road is in shadow. Not a figure or animal is to be seen.

In the Seattle area where Nomura lived, many of his fellow Japanese Americans made their living as fruit and vegetable farmers. Since 1921 they had been subject to anti-alien laws that prevented foreign-born Japanese Americans and other aliens from owning or leasing land. Those born in America who could own farmland still suffered from prejudice. During the Great Depression many Japanese American farmers barely managed to survive, living only on what they grew themselves. It is no wonder that Nomura’s view of a farm during this period is disquieting.

As other Americans emerged from the Great Depression during World War II, Nomura and other Japanese Americans were victimized again by being removed from their homes, businesses, and farms to be interned in camps. Like his PWAP painting, Nomura’s images made in internment camps feature dark skies and deep colors that evoke the shadow of injustice.

Sakari Suzuki, Maverick Road, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.150

Chuzo Tamotzu, Cats, ca. 1935-1937, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.89

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Carnival, 1949, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Harry W. Zichterman, 1978.74.3

Copies are available at the RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk, $35- (members get 10% discount).  Kiosk open 12 noon to 5 p.m.  Thursday thru Sundays

WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY
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ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

TOPPL.ING OF KING GEORGE III STATUE

On July 9, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read for the

first time in New York in front of George Washington and his troops.

In reaction to what had been read, soldiers and citizens went to

Bowling Green, a park in Manhattan, where a lead statue of King George

III on horseback stood. The mob of people pulled down the statue, and

later the lead was melted down to make musket balls, or bullets for

use in the war for independence.

Painting by Wiliam Walcutt, 1857

ANDY SPARBERG, GLORIA HERMAN, ED LITCHER AND ROBIN LYNN GOT IT!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM

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