The Musician

Artist: Miné Okubo, American, 1912–2001
Associated: Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Washington, D.C., active 1935–1943
Date: 1940 or 1941
Material: Color screenprint (resist and wash-out stencil)
made in: San Francisco, California, United States, North and Central America
Classification: Prints
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image: 20 x 17 1/2 in. (50.8 x 44.5 cm)
sheet: 28 1/4 x 24 1/8 in. (71.8 x 61.3 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration
Rights: Public Domain
Object Number: 234:1943

NOTES

Colors applied one on top of the other abstract the form of a musician. Miné Okubo used screenprint to great effect in this print, combining swathes of solid color with areas that resemble groups of individual marks. American artists increasingly experimented with models of abstraction in this period. Okubo’s particular skill with bold and graphic imagery would continue in later projects. These included managing the art design for the magazine Trek while incarcerated as a Japanese American at the Topaz Internment camp in Utah from 1942 to 1944 during World War II.

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