Masumi Hayashi

Masumi Hayashi (September 3, 1945 – August 17, 2006) was an American photographer and artist who taught art at Cleveland State University, in Cleveland, Ohio, for 24 years. She won a Cleveland Arts Prize; three Ohio Arts Council awards; a Fulbright fellowship; awards from National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, and Florida Arts Council; as well as a 1997 Civil Liberties Educational Fund research grant.

Dr. Hayashi created a large body of fine art "panoramic photo-collage" or photo collage involving shots taken on a tripod in successive rings, and later assembled as a more-or-less than 360 degree view. Of the over 200 pieces she created in this format, primary subject matter generally fit into the following series: WWII internment camps of Americans of Japanese ancestry, post-industrial landscapes, EPA Superfund sites, abandoned prisons, war and military sites, commissions, city works, and sacred architectures. In 2015, The Galleries at CSU (Cleveland State University) presented a retrospective of its former faculty member, "Place and Vision: The Artistic Legacy of Masumi Hayashi," curated by Michael Gentile.

Masumi Hayashi is perhaps best known for creating striking panoramic photocollages. A unique technic she first developed in 1985, during an artist residency, using smaller color photographs (typically 4-by-6-inch prints) like tiles in a mosaic.