Heading: (1940 Japanese-American California artist Chiura Obata, Berkeley imprints)
Author:
Title: Three 1940 Berkeley imprints illustrated by Japanese-American artist Chiura Obata
Place Published: Berkeley, California
Publisher:
Date Published: 1940
Description:

William Frederick Calkins. Hokusai, A Fable In Fact. "With Numerous Illustrations by Chiura Obata" (Ben Kennedy, Gillick Press, Berkeley, Calif.,1940) Original boards. 6.5 x 8.75", 16pp., deckle-edge paper. Obata color illustrations on title-page and 8 text-pages; Haruko Obata. An Illustrated Handbook of Japanese Flower Arrangement (Obata Studio, Berkeley, Calif., 1940) Original decorative wrappers. 15pp. Front cover and text illustrations by Chiura Obata; Haruko Obata. Japanese Flower Arrangement, An Illustrated Hadbook (Obata Studio, Berkeley, 1953) Signed by the author. Original decorative wrappers. 24pp. With front cover and text illustrations (different from the 1940 imprint) by Chiura Obata.

While working as an art instructor at UC Berkeley, Chiura Obata was renowned as a California artist, famous for his 1930 portfolio of 35 colored woodblock prints of California landscapes, mostly from Yosemite, and his 1939 collection, The Seasons at California, with drawings of the Berkeley campus. The books offered here were illustrated the following year, his work for the Hokusai book being lauded by its author for art which "tells stories of beauty, imparts something of himself and his personality, passes on a life, an essence, and an eternal truth." The flower arrangement booklet was written by Obata's wife, who taught classes in that traditional Japanese art, while managing their art store near the Berkeley campus - until, after Pearl Harbor, the shop was attacked with gunshots by an anti-Japanese fanatic. Soon after, the Obatas suffered wartime internment.