Topaz exhibit on display at Rio Gallery

Utah Arts & Museums is hosting the traveling exhibit Topaz: Artists in Internment Their Visual Work and Words at the Rio Gallery. The exhibit will continue until Feb. 10 during state office hours, which are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. The Rio Gallery is located at 300 S. Rio Grande Street (455 West) in Salt Lake City.

Topaz: Artists in Internment will feature artworks created during internment at the Topaz War Relocation Center near Delta, Utah, on loan from the Topaz Museum. Artwork by Chiura Obata, Setsu Nagata Kanehara, Charles Erabu Mikami, Miné Okubo, Thomas Ryosaku Matsuoka, Yajiro Okamoto, Kenji Utsumi and Kaneo Kido will be shown alongside the poetry of Lawson Inada. Inada was interned with his parents in camps in Fresno, Arkansas and Colorado, and was Oregon’s poet laureate from 2006 to 2010.

Japanese-Americans interned in the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah brought with them the skills from their interrupted lives. Among their number was University of California-Berkeley art instructor Chiura Obata who founded an art school at Topaz that grew to 16 instructors teaching 23 subjects to over 600 students. Over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were held in 10 remote camps in the 1940s. These Americans were not convicted or charged with any crime, yet were incarcerated for up to four years in prison camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. 

For more information, visit artsandmuseums.utah.gov or contact Wendi Hassan at 801.860.6396, whassan@utah.gov.