POWELL, Wyo. — Heart Mountain Interpretive Center has opened “The Art of Jimmy Mirikitani,” a powerful and visually striking new exhibition that will be display through April 11.
The exhibit showcases the vibrant and deeply personal artwork of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, a fiercely independent Japanese American artist whose life and creations speak to resilience, memory, and healing.
Born in 1920 in Sacramento, Mirikitani moved to Hiroshima when he was four years old and returned to the U.S. shortly before the outbreak of World War II. He and his family were incarcerated at the Tule Lake camp in Northern California and then at Crystal City, Texas.
In the decades following the war, Mirikitani lived in New York City, where he endured periods of homelessness while creating art and engaging with some of the leading figures of American art, such as painter Jackson Pollock.
He died at age 92 in New York in 2012.
The exhibit was curated by Roger Shimomura, a noted Japanese American artist and former incarceree, and produced by the Wing Luke Museum of Seattle. It was created in association with “The Cats of Mirikitani,” a 2006 documentary produced by Linda Hattendorf and Masa Yoshikawa.
This remarkable exhibition offers a moving exploration of the lasting effects of war, discrimination, and displacement, as well as the restorative power of creativity. The themes reflected in Mirikitani’s work include Japanese American incarceration, Hiroshima and nuclear warfare, 9/11 and its aftermath, aging and caregiving in America, and immigration.
The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, a Smithsonian affiliate, preserves the site where some 14,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated in Wyoming from 1942 through 1945. Their stories are told within the foundation’s museum, Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, and its affiliated Mineta-Simpson Institute, located between Cody and Powell. For more information, call (307) 754-8000 or email info@heartmountain.org.