Diary, Roger Shimomura

Archive Label 2003:
Since coming to teach at KU's Visual Arts Department, Roger Shimomura has become widely known for his "Oriental Masterpieces" and "Oriental Masterprints," which combine traditional Japanese print styles and a contemporary sense of graphic design. He turned to a more personal subject in the six large paintings of the Minidoka series, based on the experiences of his family in a Japanese-American internment camp in southern Idaho during World War II. Shimomura's earliest recollections are from the camp, which he entered at the age of three.

The Spencer Museum's painting from this series is called Diary, and is dedicated to Shimomura's grandmother, who is shown in the foreground keeping the journal. In the distance a mother teaches a child to walk, but the limits of his world are rudely indicated by the barbed wire seen through the open door.