Arthur Okamura Buddha’s Garden
Foreword
The experience of a garden has long been a personal fascination. The idea of choosing and intentionally placing plants, water, stones, and sculpture within a certain area to create a dynamic topography elicited a sense of wonder within myself as a small child and it has never left me.
Looking at the western floral and eastern Zen rock study paintings by Arthur Okamura, I perceive no less a sense of wonder about the subject by the artist. The floral gardens Okamura chose to paint were specific specimen gardens established by two of his friends. The works Garden I, Garden II, and Garden Patterns II, were painted from the garden planted by Dr. Dennis Breedlove at his home in Bolinas, CA. Jungle Garden was inspired by the tropical garden at the home of Richard Crawford on the island of Hawai’i. Dr. Breedlove was a professional botanist and Crawford was in the business of collectibles and ephemera, but each designed highly curated arrangements of plants in their gardens, displaying as much commitment to beauty as to plant conservation. That Okamura was drawn to paint their creations is not a surprise given the lush paintings he produced.
The inspiration for the Rock Study paintings presented in Okamura’s exhibition comes from a wholly different place. Zen rock gardens in Japan are unique in their placement of stones and plants within and around a large bed of gravel raked into flowing patterns of lines. Okamura’s rock studies borrow their structure from these works, but do not replicate any specific real-life garden. In that way, they move into a timeless, eternal realm. The arrangement of stones in Zen gardens can have various and simultaneous meanings, depending on the viewers interpretation. They can represent mountains, islands, animals, power centers, and/or an embodiment of the Buddha, to name a few. The inclusion in the exhibition of two large representations of the Buddha was intentional, as a core principle of the belief system is that nature is humanity’s partner for living in peace. For myself, gardens are a place for experiencing calm, reflection, and peace, three things I tend to think Okamura found there himself.
I extend my greatest thanks to Kitty Okamura, as well as Arthur’s children Beth, Jonathan, Jane, and Ethan, and Kitty’s daughter Stephanie, for entrusting Paul Thiebaud Gallery with Arthur Okamura’s legacy, and for their support in presenting this first exhibition at the gallery.
I am also indebted to Ted Barrow for his agreement to write the essay published in this catalogue, as well as to artist Sono Osato for allowing us to re-print her tribute to Arthur Okamura, her one-time teacher and long-time friend.
Lastly, I would like to thank the team at Paul Thiebaud Gallery – Colleen Casey, Greg Hemming, and Matthew Miller – for their tireless support in creating this exhibition and publication.
Thank you!
Greg Flood, Director March 2024Cool Pics.
By Ted Barrow, Ph.D.Those who knew Arthur Okamura in his lifetime – students, neighbors, friends, and family members – speak most frequently about his generous collaborations. Okamura openly shared his talents with anyone lucky enough to be near him. At art openings, restaurants, and other social functions, Okamura performed tricks, many of which involved active participants. Some were magic, others playfully bawdy. Magic and trickery were also part, but not the full-extent, of his art. Involvement was. As Okamura’s longtime friend Marie Dern surmised, the rabbit was his “doppelganger…he was devilish… clever and sly.”1 In many different cultures, the rabbit-trickster resisted authority and taught lessons through selfless play. It may not be wise to equate a direct relationship between Okamura’s social habits and his art, but the two were entwined through his desire to involve the viewer. To engage with Okamura’s surfaces of built-up paint and thick ridges of rich texture is to exercise the eye and mind, and they are open to everyone. Okamura’s work tricks you into looking closely.
Two paintings, each emblematic of Okamura’s brilliant inventive fusion, evince how he did what he did and why. In 1999, Okamura began taking digital photographs with a Nikon Coolpix, usually on his morning walks. Drawn to the spontaneity of the digital format, the flattening of space, and saturation of colors in the computer, Okamura used these source images to make his paintings. Garden Patterns II (2003), was painted in this period. These paintings trickily recall salient art-historical precedents, from the charged space of Delacroix to the vibrant saturation of Bonnard. “The way that Arthur captured light, movement, energy and silence,” describes artist Sono Osato, Okamura’s former student and friend. “I’ve seen nothing like it since. Maybe Bonnard,” she continues, “it’s an academic comparison. But I’d throw down bank that they’d [have] hung out.”2
In the painted gardens of Okamura and Bonnard, saturated blooms of color bleed into an irregular patterned surface, filling the canvas. With Okamura, however, an uncanny digital haze buzzes between forms. Color coalesces into exorbitant floating spots. Perhaps the camera brought him to Bonnard, but his preternatural skill and dexterity as a painter pushed him past any intimiste antecedents. These echoes of traditions do not over-determine his art; they amplify its novel qualities. Another kindred spirit, the artist Hiroki Morinue, described it as Okamura’s unique mastery of both “the European
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Marie Dern, unpublished video interview by film maker John Korty, 2015. Sono Osato, email correspondence with the author, January 19, 2024. Marie Dern, unpublished video interview by film maker John Korty, 2015. Sono Osato, email correspondence with the author, January 19, 2024.tradition of figurative work and the elegant space” of Asian art.3 In Okamura’s hands, these polyvalent interests and talents manifested some of the most surprising paintings of California ever conceived.
Painted in the last year of his life, Okamura’s Rock Study (2008) manifests a completely different orientation towards space. Three bravura rocks float above radiating lines and striped patterns, lusciously rendered with dollops of radiant salmon, yellow, violet and brown. Their rendering combines abstract and realist legacies in painting with the refined clarity of a Zen rock garden. Some of the lines pulsate outward from the rocks, like ripples of energy delineating space. Other lines neatly thatch along the flattened vertical and horizontal axes of the composition, emphasizing flat pattern. The cool tonal greys, greens, and purplish blues of the alternating bands between the lines quietly intimate flowing water, while their yellow and blue-grey outlines, rigid or squiggly depending on their form, shimmer like moonlight on cresting waves.
Art outlives its maker and time, addressing us with each direct encounter. As an artist born in 1932 who once said “I remember before television”4 when describing his childhood, Arthur Okamura saw the impending wave of digital media as full of potential, not doom. His digital camera became a tool for making playful, cool paintings. Continuously reinventing his mode of painting in response to the ever-changing conditions of his own life, Okamura painted every day the unstable radiance of perception itself. His enduring trick was to teach us to openly look at what he left us with lightness and attention. Thus we learn that when we see the world through the lenses of empathy and awe, compassion and playful levity, we see a new world every day. How cool is that?
*
Ted Barrow, Ph.D., is a writer and art historian living in San Francisco. He has contributed to Artforum, Juxtapoz, Alta Journal, Mn Artists, and other publications.
3 Hiroki
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Hiroki Morinue, unpublished video interview by film maker John Korty, 2015 Arthur Okamura, Bolinas Oral History Project recorded by Bobbi Kimball, July 20, 2006 Morinue, unpublished video interview by film maker John Korty, 2015. Arthur Okamura, Bolinas Oral History Project recorded by Bobbi Kimball, July 20, 2006.A Tribute to Arthur Okamura
Arthur was on my graduate committee at CCAC1 in the late eighties when he was the chair of the painting department. My masters was in painting, but the mentors I assembled reached across departments, including sculpture, architecture, and philosophy. Arthur was not only OK with that but supported it, even when I pissed people off for crossing the line. Arthur did that himself in real and subtle ways and on those grounds, we understood each other. He understood partly as a trickster who loved to fuck with people in a gentle and playful way, partly as an intellectual who didn’t puff his chest out about it, and mostly as an artist who stood firmly in the humility of being present.
We also had a deep but quiet connection because we were both Japanese-Americans. He was Nisei, like my father. It’s a narrative too expansive and subterranean for this story, but significant. The Nisei, sometimes referred to as the Quiet Americans, were quiet for a few reasons. Part of it was trauma from WWII, and part of it was being between two very different cultures. The Japanese culture values humility and the American culture does not.
I wasn’t there and this is speculation, but I have a hunch that during Arthur’s youth in the Bay Area, being surrounded by macho white guys in the Beat and Funk movements that reigned in the 60’s -70’s, Arthur didn’t register. Many of them were his friends, and he navigated diplomacy just as my father did. Also, (again I suspect), he didn’t care. At least not enough to compromise and try to conform. I doubt he was dismissive and was likely influenced, but he filtered it with his vision.
His non-conformity was one of the many reasons why I loved him. Our entry point was CCAC, but for a brief period: around a year, technically. Our real relationship truly started after I graduated, when he became my friend and continued to be my mentor; simply my elder, through the skin and artist to artist.
This gets down to the nut: what’s tacitly inside. I loved Arthur’s work because it was honest, without regard to any outside influences other than what was between him and his work. It was about wonder. Beauty followed. The kind that renders us speechless when we gaze. That’s what great art does.
To sum it up is to not sum it up. The greatest thing that enchanted me was the way Arthur captured light, movement, energy, and silence. I’ve seen nothing like it since. Maybe Bonnard. He pre-dates and it’s an academic comparison. But I’d throw down bank that they’d of hung out.
As to his legacy, look at his work. Carefully.
I miss him. The curmudgeon who got cranky if you beat him at pool, played the Sax syncopated and off key in Arthur cadence, and grinned like a cheshire when you couldn’t jump like a frog, (granted a bit altered), at a party in Bolinas. Everyone does.
Sono Osato, Artist
January 2024
1 California Collage of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA (now California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA). 1 California Collage of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA (now California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA).Plates
Rock Series #6, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 16 inches
Metamorphosis, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches
Kamakura Buddha, 1994, acrylic on canvas, 62 x 48 inches
Garden I, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24 inches
Rock Study, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 60 inches
Garden II, 2003, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches
Garden Patterns II, 2008, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
American Buddha, 1994, acrylic on canvas, 68 1/4 x 47 1/4 inches
Jungle Garden, 2002, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches
Rock Study #3, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 55 x 27 1/2 inches
ARTHUR OKAMURA
Born in 1932 in Long Beach, CA
Died in 2009 in Bolinas, CA
Education
1954 Yale University Summer Art Seminar, New Haven, CT
1951, 1953 University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
1950-54 The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Scholarships
1954 Edward L. Ryerson, Foreign Travel Fellowship
1954 Yale University Summer Art Seminar
1950-1954 Chicago Art Institute (four years)
Teaching
1966-1997
California College of Arts & Crafts (Professor of Fine Arts)
1989, 1991 Watercolor Painting in Bali (Sponsored by Wilderness Journeys/Art Trek & University of California, Santa Cruz)
1987 Watercolor Painting in Tahiti
1977 Humboldt State College, Arcata, CA
1976 University of California, Santa Cruz, CA Fort Wright College, Spokane, WA
1972 Guest Lecturer, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
1964 Guest Lecturer, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
1962 Saugatuck Summer Art School, Saugatuck, MI
1959
Saugatuck Summer Art School, Saugatuck, MI
California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, CA
1958 Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA
California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, CA Director, San Francisco Studio of Art
1957
1956
2024
2000
1997
Central YMCA College of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
North Shore Art League, Winnetka, IL
Central YMCA College of Chicago, Chicago, IL Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL
1996 Early Paintings, Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Recent Bolinas Landscapes, Commonweal -20th Anniversary Celebration, Bolinas, CA
1995 FOCUS: Arthur Okamura (retrospective); Concurrently at the Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA, and Claudia Chaplin Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA
1994 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1990 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1988 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1987 Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1986 201 Fish, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1985 Dog Paintings, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1984 Canyon Paintings, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1983 Stinson Beach Art Center, Stinson Beach, CA
1982 Fruit Paintings, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1981 Bali Paintings, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1980 Commonweal, Bolinas, CA
1977 Hanson Fuller Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1973
Kent State University, Kent, OH
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, HI
Charles Feingarten Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1972 California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, CA
University of Southern Idaho, Twin Falls, ID
1971 Hanson Fuller Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Govett Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand
1968 Drawings, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA Hanson Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1966 College of Holy Names, Oakland, CA
1965 M. Knoedler & Company, New York, NY
1964 Hanson Gallery, San Francisco, CA
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
1963 La Jolla Museum, La Jolla, CA
1962 Calhoun Gallery, Dallas, TX
1961 California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
1959 Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, CA
1958 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1956-1976
Feingarten Galleries, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles
1954 La Boutique, Chicago, IL
1953 Frank Ryan Gallery, Chicago, IL
La Boutique, Chicago, IL
Selected Group Exhibitions (cont.)
1994 Braunstein/Quay Gallery Artists, Shasta College Gallery, Redding, CA
Seas, Lakes and Rivers, San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, CA
1993 60 Plus: Older Artists of West Marin, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
Gallery Route One, Pt. Reyes Station, CA
Sea Fever, Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco, CA
Cats, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
1991 In The Garden, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
1990 Miniature Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
1988 Opening Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
Tropical Topics, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
1987 Art is…, The Art Museum of Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz, CA
On The Trail, Claudia Chaplin Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA
1986 Tropical Visions, St. Mary’s College, Moraga, CA
Tropic Exotic, TransAmerica Pyramid, San Francisco, CA
1984 The Subject is Objects, St. Mary’s College, Moraga, CA
1983 Oversize Watercolors, Jane Haslam Gallery, Washington, DC
University of Illinois, Champaign, IL
1982 7th Anniversary Faculty Exhibition, California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, CA
1981 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Braunstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1979 Braunstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1976 Zen Gardens, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA
1975 Falkirk Community Cultural Center, San Rafael, CA
1974
Two-Person Show with Joan Rosenbaum, Walnut Creek Art Center, Walnut Creek, CA
Four from CCAC, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
1973 A Sense of Place, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE
1972 Imaginary Painting from SF California State University, San Jose, CA
1971 Asian Artists, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
1970 Takashima 1970 Exposition, Osaka/Tokyo, Japan
Bay Area Art Faculties, College of Marin, Kentfield, CA
1967 Painters Behind Painters, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
Pittsburgh International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
1966 SECA Exhibits, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1965
1964
1963
1962
1961
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Pacific Heritage, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Recent Collections by Friends of the Whitney, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Ravinia Art Festival, Lake Forest, IL
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Forty Artists Under Forty, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Bay Area Artists, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Great by Greats, Time Life Building, New York, NY
Sculpture and Drawing, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1960 Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
San Francisco Annual, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1959 New Talent, American Federation of Art, CA
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
Fresh Paint, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
Knoedler Gallery, New York, NY
Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
West Coast Painters, American Federation of Art, CA
San Francisco Annual, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1959
1958-1959
1958
American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Drawings of California Artists, Sponsored by U.S. Information Center, Berlin, Germany
Contemporary Americans, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Recent Acquisitions, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
San Francisco Annual, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
West Coast Painters, American Federation of Art, New York, NY
Fresh Paint, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
1957 Society of Contemporary Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Art In Asia and the West, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
Contemporary American Painting, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Contemporary Americans, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, IL
1956
Ravinia Art Festival, Highland Park, IL
1955 University of Washington, Seattle, WA
1954
1953
1952
1951
Awards
1976
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art
Downtown Gallery, New York, NY
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual, Chicago, IL
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual, Chicago, IL
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual, Chicago, IL
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual, Chicago, IL
San Francisco Art Commission - Purchase Prize
National Society of Arts & Letters, New York, Purchase Award
1960 Whitney Museum of Art – Neysa McMein Purchase Award
1959
1957
79th Annual, San Francisco Museum - Schwabacher-Frey Award
University of Illinois - Purchase Award
Contemporary American Paintings, Art Institute of Chicago - Martin Cahn Award
1953 Religious Arts, University of Chicago - 1st Prize
Books
1995
1993 10 Poems by Issa - Co-Author Robert Bly, Publisher: Floating Island Publications
1972 Basho - Co-author Robert Bly, Publisher: Mudra
1971 Ox Herding - Co-Author Joel Weishaus, Publisher: Cranium Press
1971 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 - Co-Author, Robert Creeley, Publisher: Shambala/Mudra
Video
1980 The Art of Oil Painting, Sharyle Patton, Director, made in collaboration with Marin County Video
1978 Screen Printing, Magda Cregg Productions
Television
1972
Set Design
1998 Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, Martin Luther King Park, Berkeley, CA
1997 Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, Bandshell - Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
Selected Bibliography
2003 Nagin, Carl. “Magic Markings”, SF Weekly, November 12, 2003.
1987 Mancuso, Jo. “Fish Out of Water”, Image, January 4, 1987.
1986 “Tropical Visions”, TransAmerica Pyramid Announcement, January 13, 1986.
1984 Hays, Joanne Burstein. “Beyond Ceramic Traditions”, Artweek, October 27, 1984.
1982 Boettger, Suzaan. “Broom’s Sculpture: Whimsical Art Providing Something to Chew”, San Francisco Chronicle, June 29, 1982.
March, Al. “Okamura’s still‐lifes are on the move”, S.F. Examiner, June 14, 1982.
1981 Shere, Charles. “Okamura’s art reflects visit to Bali”, Tribune/Today, February 24, 1981.
“The Primitive and the Tropical”, Artweek, February 21, 1981.
Stiles, Knute. “Art”, The Voice February 13, 1981.
Albright, Thomas. “Exotic Subjects in Abstract Realism”, San Francisco Chronicle, February 10, 1981.
1975 Thompson, Peter, ed.; “John Rosenbaum and Arthur Okamura”, Catalogue, The Civic Arts Gallery, May 21 ‐ June 28, 1975.
Listings
Who’s Who in America
Who’s Who in the West
Who’s Who in American Art
Who’s Who Among Asian Americans
Selected Public Collections
Alta Bates Hospital, Berkeley, CA
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, San Francisco, CA
Borg Warner Collection, Chicago, IL
California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Container Corporation of America
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
HKNY Hotel, Okinawa, Japan
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Illinois Bell Telephone
Illinois State University, Normal, IL
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Arts, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Johnson Wax Collection, Racine, WI
Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI
J. Willard Marriot Library Special Collections, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
Miles Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
National Society of Arts and Letters, Germantown, Washington, D.C.
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
United Gas and Pipeline Company, Dallas, TX
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL
University of Southern Idaho, Twin Falls, ID
US Steel Service Institute
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Cover: American Buddha (detail), 1994
Rear Cover: Rock Study (detail), 2008
Copyright 2024 Paul Thiebaud Gallery. All Rights Reserved.
Images copyright 2024 Estate of Arthur Okamura.
Essay Copyright 2024 Ted Barrow, Ph.D.
Essay Copyright 2024 Sono Osato
Design: Greg Flood and Matthew Miller
All images, photo: Matthew Miller
No portion of this document may be reproduced or stored without the express written permission of the copyright holder(s).
