JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation and will reopen in late 2026. While the museum and store are closed, join us for programs and events on our Little Tokyo campus, throughout Southern California, and beyond.
Wakaji Matsumoto—An Artist in Two Worlds: Los Angeles and Hiroshima, 1917–1944 highlights an artist’s rare photographs of the Japanese American community in Los Angeles prior to World War II and urban life in Hiroshima prior to the 1945 atomic bombing of the city.
Browse this exhibition’s resources below which include essays by Dennis Reed, the curator of the exhibition, and Karen Matsumoto, Wakaji’s granddaughter; educational activities; and related resources.
The Matsumoto family returned to Hiroshima in the summer of 1927. Upon their return, Wakaji opened Hiroshima Shashinkan (Hiroshima Photography Studio) in the Naka Ward, near the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall—now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome. The Matsumotos lived above the studio.
By 1922, Wakaji was an active photographer in the Los Angeles photography community. By 1925 he was an assistant at Toyo Miyatake’s studio in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo.
Toyo was the son of the first Japanese confectioner in Los Angeles. Like Wakaji, he yearned to be an artist and did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps. After Toyo took a course with local photographer H. K. Shigeta, he bought the Paris Photo Studio in 1923 and renamed it the Toyo Studio LA. It would eventually become the best-known studio in Little Tokyo.
Wakaji Matsumoto was born to Wakamatsu and Haru (née Motoyama) Matsumoto on July 17, 1889, in Jigozen, Hatsukaichi-shi, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. In 1906, Wakaji was summoned by his father, Wakamatsu, to help with work on his farm in Los Angeles. Wakaji traveled from Japan by ship to Victoria, British Columbia and from there by boat and train to Los Angeles. Wakaji first worked as a houseboy to learn English, and later worked on the family farm. He yearned to be a graphic artist—a challenging undertaking in a new world and one that was discouraged by Wakamatsu.
Wakaji Matsumoto—An Artist in Two Worlds: Los Angeles and Hiroshima, 1917–1944 highlights an artist’s rare photographs of the Japanese American community in Los Angeles prior to World War II and of urban life in Hiroshima prior to the 1945 atomic bombing of the city.
LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) is proud to announce that William T Fujioka has been named chair of the JANM Board of Truste
During the last two weeks of July, JANM had a wonderful time welcoming over fifty teachers from eighteen states for Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations. These two week-long workshops were funded by a Landmarks of American History and Culture grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) has extended the closing dates for two temporary exhibitions that offer new insights into the incarceration of Japanese Americans in American concentration camps during World War II. BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration will stay open through January 8, 2023.
LOS ANGELES, CA – August 11, 2022 – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) is proud to announce the launch of the Museum’s new digital guide on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and cultural mobile app created by Bloomberg Philanthropies.