Rain

This work exemplifies the monochrome ink-painting style for which Obata became famous in the 1930s. Here, the wetness of a rainy spring day is evoked through modulated washes indicating the tree’s sodden leaves and trunk, and long, dilute strokes of falling rain. These stylistic ink-painting traits link his work to that of his contemporaries in Japan, suggesting that Obata kept abreast of developments in the art world there.

He was also highly conscious of his role in introducing this tradition to the United States. A 1938 article in Time magazine described a painting demonstration he held at the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento viewed by some nineteen hundred visitors. According to the article “his atmospheric, formalized landscapes . . . made critics remember him as one of the most accomplished artists in the West.”

At the time this was written, Obata had a successful career marked by several solo shows and was an influential ink-painting teacher at UC Berkeley. Just four years later, his studio was shut down and his family forcibly evacuated to the Topaz incarceration camp in Utah.