Toyo Miyatake's Camera, (sculpture).

Toyo Miyatake's Camera, (sculpture).

Nagasawa, Nobuho, 1959- , sculptor.

C. P. Goerz, founder.

Toyo Miyatake's Camera, (sculpture).

Digital Reference:

Sculpture: bronze; Base: steel.

Sculpture: approx. 18 x 18 x 22 in.; Base: approx. H. 4 ft. (300 lbs.)

Founder's mark appears.

Box camera on a tripod, three times its normal size. The sculpture contains projection equipment which projects images on a screen in the window of the Japanese American National Museum after dark. The images are photos taken by Toyo Miyatake, the owner of the camera on which this piece is modelled. The photos are of life in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles, and in the Manzanar Internment Camp during the 1940s.

History -- United States -- World War II

Ethnic -- Japanese

Homage -- Miyatake, Toyo

Object -- Art Tool -- Camera

Outdoor Sculpture -- California -- Los Angeles

Administered by City of Los Angeles, Community Redevelopment Agency, Art Program, 354 South Spring Street, 7th floor, Los Angeles, California 90013

Located Japanese American National Museum, 369 East 1st Street, Los Angeles, California

Commissioned by the Community Redevelopment Agency for $17,000. This is a replica of a makeshift camera used by Toyo Miyatake (1895-1979) while interned at the Manzanar Internment Camp during World War II. Miyatake smuggled a lens into the camp, and a craftsman friend made the box. Encouraged by a sympathetic camp director, Miyatake recorded life in the camp. These images are among those projected from the sculpted replica. This site is temporary. IAS files include the text of a nearby commemorative plaque and excerpt from Michael Several's "Little Tokyo: The Public Art of Los Angeles," pg. 44-46.

Save Outdoor Sculpture, California survey, 1994.

The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.

Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

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