Parisian Pursuits: From Wanderer to Salon Success

Like many art students during the 1930s, Sugimoto decided to travel to Paris, home to world-renowned artists of Impressionist art. There, he sought the opportunity to see the original paintings of European masters he long admired, including Paul Cézanne and Vincent Van Gogh, and influential contemporary French artists, namely Maurice de Vlaminck and André Dunoyer de Segonzac. In 1930, Sugimoto arrived in Paris knowing no one, so he decided to wander around the city until he met someone Japanese. On his third day, he finally saw someone Japanese in the street, and remarkably, it turned out to be Fujioka Noboru, a painter from New York City. 

Sugimoto was quickly welcomed in by Noboru and other members of the dynamic community of Japanese artists living in Paris. He proceeded to take French lessons, visit museums, and take art lessons at the Académie Colarossi. One of Sugimoto’s primary goals was to exhibit his work in a Parisian salon, which required success in a competitive selection process. In the fall of 1930, he submitted a painting to the Salon d’Automne, but fell into a depression when his piece was rejected. To remedy his spirits, friends took Sugimoto to the village of Voulangis in the French countryside for a sketching trip. Captivated by the scenery, Sugimoto remained there for the rest of his sojourn in France (apart from short trips). There, he produced a substantive body of impressionist style oil paintings encapsulating landscapes and life in the countryside, honing a rich earth-toned palette and exploring compositions with church buildings, windblown trees, haystacks, and winding paths. The following year, Sugimoto submitted two paintings from Voulangis to the Salon d’Automne, and this time, one entitled Far View of Villiers, was accepted. Soon after this accomplishment, Sugimoto returned to California in 1932 as a matured artist, replenished with confidence and hope for his career.  

Budding Career in California

In 1932, Sugimoto returned from France to California with a promising artistic career ahead. Impressed by his entry in the Salon d’Automne, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor presented Sugimoto’s first solo exhibition in the summer of 1933 in San Francisco. Sugimoto’s show was a success and catalyzed significant attention from galleries and museums throughout California and New York. Throughout the 1930s, Sugimoto continued to exhibit throughout California and to create new artwork. He traversed the state, spending time in Yosemite, Carmel, Los Angeles, and San Diego, to capture the distinct scenery of the West Coast. In 1939, Sugimoto also took a month-long trip to Mexico, eager to view the work of Mexican muralists. His work in Mexico displays experimentation of people with a rather abstract, elemental depiction of the human figure. 

In addition to Sugimoto’s exhibitions and paintings, the 1930s was a period of significant personal growth for him. In 1934, he married Susie Tagawa, his sweetheart since high school in Hanford. After a few years, Susie and Henry had their first child, Madeleine Sugimoto. They moved back to Hanford to be near family, and Sugimoto took a job at the Tagawa’s laundry business and as a part-time Japanese language teacher at the local school.
 

Art Amid Adversity: Painting Through Incarceration

After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, it was clear to Sugimoto that there would be serious consequences for the Japanese American community. Not long after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, a mass forced removal became imminent. Soon, Sugimoto, his wife, and six-year-old daughter were forced to quickly abandon their home and lives, leaving most of their belongings behind when they were sent to the nearby Fresno temporary detention center.

Sugimoto was able to sneak in a small amount of art materials, and he continued to create art for the entire duration of incarceration. As he later reflected, he “depicted camp life… with an artist’s sense of mission.” But without access to proper art supplies, Sugimoto had a limited palette, explaining the predominant use of brown, and had to use scavenged materials as canvases, such as bed sheets and wood scraps. At first, he painted in secret, as documentation of treatment and conditions in camps was restricted. However when the authorities learned of his work, they seized the opportunity as propaganda, filming Sugimoto painting to demonstrate the “freedom” enjoyed in camp. 

After six months, Sugimoto and his family were transferred to Jerome concentration camp in Arkansas, where he took on the role of art instructor for high school students and adults. This position finally enabled him to obtain standard art supplies. During incarceration, a dramatic shift in the content of Sugimioto’s work occurred—his paintings switched from primarily landscapes and still lifes to a focus on people and a representation of the conditions of camp life. Though these works depict scenes of everyday life, they are embedded with intense emotion and political commentary. 

In the summer of 1944, the War Relocation Authority closed Jerome and transferred the remaining incarcerees, including Sugimoto and his family to the Rohwer concentration camp, also in Arkansas. A year later in 1945, as closure of the camps was impending, Sugimoto completed a significant body of sketches and oil and watercolor paintings that captured the burdens, tragedy, and emotional complexities and experiences of the incarcerees. 

Resettlement: New Beginnings in New York

In the summer of 1945, Sugimoto and his family left Rohwer with very little money and little to return to in California. They took the opportunity to move to a new city, deciding on New York. Initially, there was little interest in Sugimoto’s paintings from camp, so the artist found work at a textile company creating fabric patterns. In his spare time, Sugimoto continued to work on his art and took advantage of the city’s active art scene by frequenting museums and galleries. 

Sugimoto experimented with several different mediums and subject matters after the war. He painted the New York City landscape and spent quite a bit of time in parks, mostly Central Park and Riverside Park, grappling with the intersection of metropolis and nature through watercolor and oil paintings that he often painted in plein air. Susie and Madeleine appear frequently in his work as a mother and young daughter, along with his son Phillip, born in 1949.

From the late 1940s and on, he also reworked compositions he made in camp and created new works centered around camp experiences and the process of resettlement. In the early 1960s, Sugimoto further expanded the range of his subject matter as he began to work on a series of pieces based on the Japanese immigrant experience and life in the United States as an Issei. Additionally, during the late 1950s, Sugimoto began to explore a new medium—printmaking using linoleum and woodblocks. He created a series of pine tree prints, perhaps a nod to more traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking. 

Retirement and Artistic Renewal

In 1962, at age sixty-two, Sugimoto finally retired to devote himself full-time to art once again. Soon after retiring, he returned to France for a year, hoping the trip would reinvigorate him as an artist, just as it had in 1930. After a year of painting familiar scenes and visiting old friends, Sugimoto decided to continue his travels to Japan, which he had not returned to since leaving in 1919. He was able to visit family and his childhood home, and also met members of Nikakai, an association of Japanese artists. Once back in New York, Sugimoto submitted a painting entitled People Who Live Along the Seine—Nikakai accepted it and invited Sugimoto to become a member, an indication that he was also celebrated in the Japanese art world. 

In the US, Sugimoto continued to show in galleries and to work on compositions based on camp and the Japanese immigration experience. He also continued to work with linoleum and woodblock prints, depicting scenes of New York and turning paintings of camp life into black and white images. 

As the Japanese American community began to come to terms with the incarceration experience and as the movement for redress and reparations was gaining momentum in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Sugimoto’s paintings about camp gained attention and were shown in exhibitions by groups like the Japanese American Citizens League in New York and the Japanese Presbyterian Church. In 1981, Sugimoto was asked to testify before the US Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians and show his art, which evoked a powerful sense of the complex emotions felt during the war. 

Henry Sugimoto passed away in New York City in 1990. He continued to paint even in his final years, dedicated to preserving his identity as an artist and leaving a lasting legacy on the international art world. 
 

Undated Prints

The dates of many of Sugimoto’s wood and linocut prints remain unknown. There are quite a few copies of each print, yet none of them are dated. It is possible that they were created during Sugimoto’s retirement post-1962, which is when he worked on a collection of black and white lino block prints depicting compositions from camp. A few prints also have property tags attached with a NYC address listed, suggesting they were made after the war. However, Sugimoto could have only been displaying or selling these prints when he was in New York. Perhaps he actually created them during the late 1920s when he studied printmaking at the California School of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco. Whatever the case, Sugimoto is certainly less well known for his prints, despite having an expansive and impressive body of works. Many of the undated prints appear to have a Japanese influence, and often include a large red sun.