In My Man, Japanese-born artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi depicted a common sight during World War II: a woman embracing a sailor. Kuniyoshi’s version of the scene depicts a blond-haired man and an Asian woman at a time when the loyalty of Japanese Americans was being questioned. Even as tens of thousands of Japanese Americans enlisted or already served in the United States military, the government imprisoned thousands of citizens of Japanese descent in incarceration camps between 1942 and 1945. Kuniyoshi was labeled an “enemy alien,” and his assets were frozen. The dealer Edith Halpert, herself an immigrant, promoted his work throughout the war and sold this painting to the Art Institute shortly after he created it.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Tom Wolf, The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi, exh. cat. (Smithsonian American Art Museum/GILES, 2015), ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, 55th Annual American Exhibition: Water Colors and Drawings, June 8–Aug. 20, 1944, cat. 246.
Whitney Museum of American Art, Yasuo Kuniyoshi: Retrospective Exhibition, Mar. 27–May 9, 1948, cat. 80.
Chicago, University of Illinois, for Navy Pier exhibition, Feb. 14– Mar. 14, 1949.
Boston University Art Gallery, Exhibition of the Works by Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Feb. 24–Mar. 18, 1961.
Gainesville, University of Florida, A Special Loan Retrospective of Works by Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Feb. 7–Mar. 30, 1969; National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, May 9–June 29, 1969, cat. 27.
Austin, University of Texas Art Museum, Yasuo Kuniyoshi Retrospective, Feb. 9–Mar. 23, 1975; Madison, Wisconsin, Elvehjem Art Center, Apr. 13–May 18, 1975; Athens, Georgia Museum of Art, June 8–July 13, 1975; Nagoya, Japan, Aichi Cultural Center, Aug. 8–c. Aug. 30, 1975; Tokyo, Japan, Bridgestone Museum, Sept. 8–c.Oct. 15, 1975; Kobe, Japan, Hyogo Municipal Museum of Modern Art, Nov. 3–Dec. 20, 1975; Ontario, Windsor Art Gallery, Jan. 4–Feb. 8, 1976.
Norfolk, Virginia, Chrysler Museum, The Myth of the Sailor: The Creation of an American Demigod, Jan. 20– Mar. 13, 1983, cat. p. 44.
Annandale–on–Hudson, New York, Yasuo Kuniyoshi: Artist as Photographer, 1983; West Palm Beach, Norton Gallery and School of Art, cat.
Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Nov. 1–Dec. 24, 1989; Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, Jan. 5–Feb. 12, 1990; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Feb. 20–Apr. 1, 1990, cat. 79.
Tokyo, ASAHI Shimbun, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, Nagaoka, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Apr. 20–May 29, 1994, Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10–July 24, 1994, Yokohama Museum of Art Aug. 6–Sept. 25, 1994, p. 175.
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008, Jan. 31–May 31, 2015; San Diego Museum of Art, July 17–Oct. 18, 2015; Brooklyn Museum, Nov. 20, 2015–Mar. 13, 2016; San Antonio, McNay Art Museum, May 11–Sept. 11, 2016, cat. 93.
Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889–1953), 1943; consigned to The Downtown Gallery, New York, by 1944 [lent to Chicago 1944]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1944.
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