The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama

The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama features more than 40 paintings loaned to the museum by the Japanese American National Museum and Ueyama’s family, whose combined efforts to preserve his work have allowed the story of this accomplished and cosmopolitan artist to be told at the DAM for the first time.

Born in Japan, Tokio Ueyama moved to the United States in 1908 at age 18, where he made a home until his death in 1954. This exhibition tells the story of Ueyama’s life, including his early days as an art student in San Francisco, Southern California, and Philadelphia; his travels abroad in Europe and Mexico; his role as artist and community member in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles; and his unconstitutional incarceration during World War II at the Granada Relocation Center, now the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado.

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Tokio and his wife Suye were among more than 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated into American concentration camps. More than 10,000 people were unconstitutionally incarcerated at Amache in the following years, making it the third largest "city" in Colorado at the time. There, Ueyama taught adult art classes to 150 students. 

This exhibition tells a story of a time in Colorado’s history, of a place where Americans experienced dislocation and loss, and, more importantly, displayed unimaginable resilience, tenacity, and creativity in the face of prejudice.​

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website