PBA Galleries

Two watercolor paintings.

The first, signed  L/L,  S. Mikami, 11x16”.  View of the Topaz Valley, near Delta Utah, the site of the Japanese  Relocation Camp set up at the beginning of WWII under Executive order #9066. Charles Erabu “Suiko” Mikami born in Japan, studied Sumi and Japanese ink and brush painting as a teenager before immigrating to Seattle with his family in 1913. At the beginning of the war, he was interned at the Tule Lake Internment Center and then transferred to the Topaz Center in Delta, Utah. He continued to actively paint at Topaz and after the War, where he settled in Morgan Hill, CA as a Strawberry farmer. Some of his work is currently being shown  in Seattle, WA. In an exhibit titled “Art Behind Barbwire” at the Northwest Nikke Museum which celebrates the 70th Anniversary of the signing of Executive Order # 9066 and the arts and crafts produced during that period in the camps. His work is also held  in the Japanese  American National Museum in Los Angeles, San Jose Japanese Museum and the Sacramento State Art Museum.

The second painting is also an 11x15” watercolor which is identified on the reverse in pencil as “Delta, Utah Relocation Camp” . It is not signed, but there are some Japanese characters, and a “chop” on the lower right corner. We have not been able to identify those, or whether this painting is also by Mikami, but they came together and very well might be. This view is a very moving and haunting image of a camp street scene in an evening sunset, showing two figures walking with lights on in the rows of cabins.