When Ruth was 16, she and her family were interned along with 120,000 other people of Japanese ancestry who lived along the West Coast of the United States. For many, the upheaval of losing everything, most importantly their right to freedom and a private, family life, caused irreparable harm. For Ruth, the internment was the first step on a journey to a world of art that profoundly changed who she was and what she thought was possible in life. In 1994, when she was 68 years old, she reflected on the experience: “I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am.”

Zig Zag
oil on paper, 6.75″ x 3″, 1946

Born in 1935 in Kalopa, Hawaii, George Miyasaki began drawing at an early age, copying cartoons out of magazines. Miyasaki’s family supported his interest in art, as did his high school art instructor, who encouraged Miyasaki to attend the California College of Art and Crafts. Miyasaki followed this advice, moving to Oakland and enrolling in CCAC in 1953, where he had the opportunity to study with Richard Diebenkorn and Nathan Oliveira. During this time, Miyasaki began to work in an abstract expressionist manner and by the late 1950’s his paintings and lithographs were beginning to find an audience and gain critical attention.

In spite of this early success, Miyasaki abandoned the expressionist approach during the mid-sixties in favor of more systematic investigations of color and form. The rigorous geometry characteristic of his works of this period subsequently softened and by 1978, Miyasaki was freely combining collage elements with hard-edge shapes and spontaneous, expressionistic paint application.

In these mature works, Miyasaki engages the viewer in almost meditative contemplation as he challenges the eye to survey the depths of his paintings’ highly nuanced surfaces and subtle printmaking. This involvement has brought him on numerous occasions to Magnolia, where he has produced several editions of delicate intaglio works and lithographs. Most recently, George Miyasaki was the recipient of the National Academy of Design’s prestigious purchase prize for print produced at Magnolia (from the Emotional Map portfolio). Miyasaki has also received, among other honors, two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1980, 1985), and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1963). His work is held in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. He currently lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Inner Eye
Acrylic on canvas

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Trapped Rainbow
Mixed Media, 12 x 8 inches, 1969

Gaius Plinius
Mixed Media, 9 x 15 inches, 1993

Duchamp & Schwitters
30 x 16 inches, 1984

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