Professional Activities

Object Details

Sponsor: Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.

Collection Citation: Chiura Obata papers, circa 1891-2000. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Collection Rights: The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Existence and Location of Copies: The bulk of this series has been digitized. Materials which have not been digitized include blank pages, blank versos of photographs, duplicates, and student grades. In some cases, exhibition catalogs and other publications have had their covers, title pages, and relevant pages digitized.

Scope and Contents: The professional activities series contains materials related to Obata's work as an artist and art educator, including records from his time teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, to the Tanforan and Topaz Art Schools he established, and documents about other activities within the relocation centers. Most of the series consists of teaching files, but there are other files on projects and commissions such as his set design for Madame Butterfly, art inventory lists, and the donation of a painting to the Japanese American Citizens League.

Collection Restrictions: This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.