The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama features more than 40 paintings loaned to the museum by the Japanese American National Museum and Ueyama’s family, whose combined efforts to preserve his work have allowed the story of this accomplished and cosmopolitan artist to be told at the DAM for the first time.
Born in Japan, Tokio Ueyama moved to the United States in 1908 at age 18, where he made a home until his death in 1954. This exhibition tells the story of Ueyama’s life, including his early days as an art student in San Francisco, Southern California, and Philadelphia; his travels abroad in Europe and Mexico; his role as artist and community member in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles; and his incarceration during World War II at the Granada Relocation Center, now the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado.