Obata: Watercolor of Purple Spiderwort Flowers (Sold)

Artist: Chiura Obata   (1885-1975)
Title: Watercolor of Purple Flowers
Date: May 21st, 1944

Tradescantia occidentalis, or western Spiderwort. Obata’s wife Haruko was one of the first teachers of ikebana in the San Francisco Bay Area, and wrote “An Illustrated Handbook of Japanese Flower Arrangement” (Berkeley 1940). This book featured numerous ink illustrations by Chiura.  Several similar watercolor portraits of flowers are shown in recently published book “Chiura Obata: An American Modern” (UCal Press, 2018) on pages 60-63. At the time of this painting,  May of 1944, the Obatas were living in Saint Louis following their release from internment at the Topaz War Relocation Center. He was reinstated as an instructor at UC Berkeley in 1945. Obata taught at Berkeley between 1932 and 1954, and made many study paintings as demonstration to his students. The University of California, Berkeley preserved many of his paintings while Obata and his family were interned in Utah during WWII. Recent exhibitions of Obata’s works have been taken place at the Smithsonian Institution, which would have closed in May of 2020. Provenance: Estate of Chiura Obata. Includes a Certificate of Authenticity from the estate.

SKU: OBA106