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| Gus Nakagawa |
Kasumi
“Gus” Nakagawa (Poston 209-4-A) was born on December 7, 1922 to Kamewaka
and Orise Nakagawa, immigrants from Japan. Gus attended Florence Union High
School, in Watsonville, California. His father
was employed as a gardener.
After the signing of Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, the Nakagawa family was evacuated
from Watsonville to the Salinas Assembly Center. On July 4, 1942, Gus, older brother Henry, and their parents, arrived at the Poston, Arizona
concentration camp 2. During his time at Poston, Gus studied watercolor painting under the former Disney animator, Gene Sogioka. " In Unit II, however, one artist, Gene Sogioka,
established an active class in watercolors and
aroused the interest of two young artists, Gus Nakagawa and Harry
Yoshizumi.
These two young men worked enthusiastically at
classes and in improving their own work and did a great many excellent
water
colors. They worked closely with the other adult
education groups and an interest in painting continued active until the
summer
of 1945. The two artists sold their paintings
for nominal sums to cover the cost of materials. The paintings were
eagerly
bought by members of the appointed personnel who
wanted them as souvenirs. In the spring of 1945 a number of the
paintings
were sold for a somewhat larger amount of money
to raise money for the three Unit college scholarship funds."
His brother Henry, left Poston on March 21, 1944, and found
outside employment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Gus left Poston on June 5, 1945 and
went to Brooklyn, New York to continue his art studies. His parents finally departed from Poston on
August 21, 1945 and headed to Milwaukee.
Gus Nakagawa studied at the Arts Student League in New York and worked
as a commercial artist on the East Coast. In 1951, He exhibited some of his work at the 75th
Anniversary Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture by 75 artists from the Art
Students League held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gus spent most of his life with commerical art, which is at the Huntington Library Collection since 2004.
Gus Nakagawa died in
January 1991 in Amawalk, Westchester County, New York. He was predeceased by his father Kamewaka (1959); and mother, Orise (1961).
Sources:
http://larryrippeeandmollyreaart.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html
http://www.sgvcc.org/publications/SGVCCStoneSoup-summer-2011.pdf
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft0779n5gc;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=d0e724&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e500&brand=calisphere
