"Chiura Obata (小圃 千浦 Obata Chiura?, November 18, 1885 - October 6, 1975) was a well-known Japanese-American artist and popular art teacher. A self-described "roughneck", Obata went to the United States in 1903, at age 17. After initially working as an illustrator and commercial decorator, he had a successful career as a painter, following a 1927 summer spent in the Sierra Nevada, and was a faculty member in the Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1932 to 1954, interrupted by World War II, when he spent over a year in internment camps. After his retirement, he continued to paint and to lead group tours to Japan to see gardens and art. Obata was born in 1885 in Okayama prefecture in Japan.He was the youngest of a very large family. At the age of five, he showed a natural inclination for drawing. He was then adopted by his older brother, Rokuichi, who was himself an artist. At the age of 7 he began his formal training by a master painter in the art of sumi-e, Japanese ink and brush painting. At the age of 14, Obata ran away from home to avoid being put into military school. In Tokyo, he became apprenticed to the painter Tanryo Murata for three years. He also studied with Kogyo Terasaki and Goho Hasimoto. He was trained in Western as well as Japanese art, painting throughout his life in the Western manner. Shortly after he finished his apprenticeship, he received a prestigious art award in Tokyo. ...Obata and his wife Haruko ran an art supply store at 2525 Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, from which his wife offered lessons in ikebana. The shop was shot at after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, and eventually the Obatas were forced to close it and cancel all classes. ...n April 1942, Obata was interned at the Tanforan detention center. By May, he and fellow artists were able to create an art school that had 600 students, entirely with their own money and with donations from the outside..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiura_Obata undefined

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