Chiura Obata

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Join Oscar-winning filmmaker John Ridley for a conversation about painter Chiura Obata (1885–1975) with writer, and Obata’s granddaughter, Kimi Hill. An influential California-based artist and Japanese American cultural leader, Obata captured the beauty of the American West and the tragedy of Japanese internment during World War II.

Sunday, May 21st • 1–2:30 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Where: Lubar Auditorium at the Milwaukee Art Museum

700 N. Art Museum Dr., Milwaukee, WI 53202

and online at www.nostudios.com

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Obata always thought about giving thanks to nature.

- Kimi Hill

ChiuraObata

Chiura Obata (1885-1975), an American artist born in Japan, is a renowned California landscape painter of the 20th century. His seminal work depicting the High Sierra in 1927 was captured vividly in the book Obata's Yosemite. Obata's art and his philosophy of gratitude and reverence to "Dai Shizen"-

- Great Nature -- continues to resonate today. Now as people search for inspiration as stewards of our planet, a fresh look at Obata's art and life affords lessons for everyone.

Kimi Hill

Obata’s granddaughter, Kimi Hill, has consulted on numerous books and exhibitions about her grandfather, including the 2019 retrospective at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. As family historian Hill also edited the book Topaz Moon: Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment, which tells the story of the Obata family, one of among the thousands of Japanese Americans unjustly incarcerated during WWII.

John Ridley

John Ridley is an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director, novelist, playwright and showrunner whose credits include 12 Years A Slave, Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992, “American Crime,” and Jimi: All Is By My Side. His most recent projects include “Five Days at Memorial,” a limited series for Apple TV+, chronicling the first five days in a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina. Ridley and Carlton Cuse both serve as showrunners, writers, executive producers, and directors on the series. Earlier this year, Ridley was a part of The New Group’s Off-Broadway stage musical Black No More which opened February 2022.

This fall, he released various comic book series for DC Comics, including GCPD: The Blue Wall, I Am Batman, and Batman: One Bad Day: Penguin, all written by Ridley. He is gearing up to release Netflix’s Shirley, which he wrote and directed and features Regina King as America’s first Black Congresswoman, Shirley Chisholm.

In the fall of 2018 Ridley opened NO Studios, a space for the arts and community, in his hometown of Milwaukee.

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