Kiyoo Harry Nobuyuki

Name Kiyoo Harry Nobuyuki
Born September 21 1904
Died June 9 1990
Birth Location Kurume, Japan
Generational Identifier

Issei

Kiyoo "Harry" Nobuyuki (1904-1990) was an Issei painter who exhibited widely before World War II in the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to paint throughout his World War II incarceration in Gila River, Arizona.

Nobuyuki was born on September 21, 1904, in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. In 1923, he immigrated to San Francisco, California, where he studied at the California School of Fine Arts with Spencer Macky and Lee Randolph in 1926-27. His first group exhibition was the 1926 show of the Sangenshoku Ga Kai (Three Primary Colors Art Group) at Kinmon Gakuen, San Francisco. Noboyuki specialized in landscapes, and he exhibited a number of his best in 1927 at a joint show of work by members of the San Francisco Sangenshoku Ga Kai and the Los Angeles-based Shaku-do sha group. He also exhibited with the San Francisco Art Association in 1928 and 1932, and in the 1935 inaugural show of the San Francisco Museum of Art, showing two paintings: Alley, Houses of Russian Hill , and Winter .

He went back to Japan in 1936. On his ship's passenger list upon returning to the United States in 1937 lists his profession as "artist." In 1940, he and his wife and sons moved to Los Angeles, California and throughout the duration of World War II, they were incarcerated at Gila River in Arizona. While in camp, he continued to paint. After their incarceration, Noboyuki returned to Los Angeles, where he resided until his death, but it appears that he did not exhibit in the post-war years.

Nobuyuki died on June 9, 1990, in Los Angeles, California, at age 86.

Authored by Patricia Wakida

For More Information

Chang, Gordon H., Mark Dean Johnson, and Paul J. Karlstrom, editors. Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 . Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008.

Last updated July 11, 2015, 3:28 a.m..