Kiyoo Harry Nobuyuki

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 married his first wife, Hideko Sakai, in 1928 in San Francisco. In 1936, he returned to Japan, and on the ship's passenger list upon returning to the United States in 1937, he listed his profession as "artist." By 1940, he had remarried to Kikuyo “Katherine” Nobuyuki, and his wife and twin sons moved to Los Angeles, California. Throughout the duration of World War II, the Nobuyuki family was incarcerated at Gila River in Arizona, where according to the Gila River Final Accountability Roster, two more children, a girl and a boy, were born. While in camp, he continued to paint. In the post-war years, he was the only Japanese artist who exhibited at the SF Art Association's 64th annual at the SF Museum of Art and with the Los Angeles Palette Club in 1948, but in the following years, there is little evidence that he continued exhibiting work. After their incarceration, Noboyuki returned to Los Angeles, where he resided until his death.

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