Benji Okubo

Benji Okubo (October 27, 1904 – April 15, 1975) was an American-Japanese oil and watercolor painter, teacher, and landscape designer. He mainly focused on his landscape paintings which he was most accomplished in. He was born and raised in Riverside, California. He was the eldest of the seven children of Tometsugu "Frank" Okubo and Miejoko Kato. Artist Miné Okubo was his sister. Both parents were first generation immigrants from Japan. Okubo studied on scholarship at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, 1927-1929, where he was awarded prizes and worked on his art. He studied under Stanton Macdonald-Wright at the Art Students League of Los Angeles, and later collaborated with him. when he was interned at the Pomona Assembly Center outside Los Angeles. The momentum of Okubo's career came to a sudden halt when he was transferred to a internment camp at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming following the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. While at the camp he instructed a life class. He and fellow artist Hideo Date also initiated evening and Saturday art classes, which they referred to as the Art students league of heart mountain.

Selected works Vision of the Blue Lily (Self-Portrait) (1930s), private collection Untitled (Green-Faced Woman (1930s), Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles Woman with Cat (1942-1945), Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles Untitled (Dungeon: Well of Sorrow) (1942-1945), Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles Untitled (Impaled Soldier) (1942-1945), Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles Untitled (Hand of God) (1942-1945), Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles Atom Bomb (1945), Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles