Wakaji Matsumoto: An Artist in Two Worlds, Los Angeles and Hiroshima, 1917-1944

FAIN: GE-264575-19

Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA 90012-3911)
John Esaki (Project Director: August 2018 to December 2021)

Planning of a traveling exhibition, public programs, and a catalog examining Japanese immigration and life in rural California and Hiroshima through the photographs of Wakaji Matsumoto (1889­–1965). 

The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) is seeking support for the design and development of a timely and historically important travelling exhibition Wakaji Matsumoto: An Artist in Two Worlds, Los Angeles and Hiroshima, 1917-1944. Taking place at JANM in 2020, this exhibition will present a selection of historically important photographs never before seen in the United States. Taken by photographer Wakaji Matsumoto, these panoramas and black and white photographs offer the public a rare glimpse into the lives and accomplishments of Japanese immigrants from Hiroshima, Japan to Los Angeles, California in the early 1900s. Together with accompanying interpretive narrative, this exhibition will help visitors better understand life in Hiroshima before WWII and Japanese immigration in the Los Angeles area prior to extensive urbanization.