Hisako Hibi’s Work as an Artist Was Almost Lost

Hisako Shimizu Hibi was a Japan-born American painter known for the large body of work she created while incarcerated during World War II. Hibi immigrated to the United States with her parents in 1920 at the age of 14. By the time her parents decided to return to Japan in 1925, Hibi was determined to become an artist and remained behind. In 1926, she enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and studied oil painting. She married another Japan-born student and painter, Matsusaburo “George” Hibi, in 1930, and they settled in the rural San Francisco Bay Area community of Hayward. Hibi was active in the Bay Area’s art scene throughout the 1930s as a landscape painter.

During World War II, under Executive Order 9066, Hibi, her husband, and their two children were incarcerated in May 1942 along with thousands of other Japanese Americans. Before being transported to the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California, the Hibis sold their household belongings and left their paintings with a friend for safekeeping. In September, Hibi and her family were moved to the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah. The high elevation desert environment was harsh, and the living conditions were rudimentary.

Despite the harsh conditions in the camp, a vibrant artistic community flourished. Other San Francisco area Japanese American artists were also incarcerated at Tanforan and Topaz, and together they created art schools and hosted community art exhibits. With time on her hands, Hibi taught children’s classes for the Topaz Art Schoo and focused on her own painting. In the three and a half years her family was confined to the camps, Hibi produced more than 70 paintings depicting the activity of camp life and the surrounding landscape. Since camera ownership was prohibited in the camps, depictions of camp life by Hibi and other artists have become invaluable records.

The family relocated to New York City after the war. Hibi appreciated blending into the multi-cultural environment of the city after attracting so much attention in California and Utah. When her husband Matsusaburo died of cancer in 1947, she began supporting her family as a seamstress in a garment factory. Hibi continued painting, and her style evolved as she adopted many of the same techniques and materials used in abstract expressionism. Unfortunately, her early history as an artist was almost lost entirely as the paintings left behind in California went missing before Hibi could return to California to reclaim them.

Hibi finally found community and recognition when she returned to San Francisco with her daughter in 1954. Although circumstances required her to continue to work as a seamstress, and later a housekeeper, she grew as an artist and deepened her practice of Buddhism. Her first solo exhibition took place in San Francisco in 1970 and was followed by many others. She was active in the San Francisco Women Artists organization and became an early member of the Asian American Women Artists Association when it was founded in 1989. Hibi died in 1991 at the age of 84.

Further Reading: 

• Hisako Hibi and Ibuki H. Lee, Peaceful painter: memoirs of an issei woman artist, 2004.
• Sandra C. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz, 1993.