Toyo Miyatake: Behind the Glass Eye

January 11 – April 19, 2020

This temporary exhibition chronicles the life and work of Los Angeles-based photographer Toyo Miyatake (1895-1979). A leading artist in Little Tokyo community prior to WWII, Miyatake was incarcerated at Manzanar, where he documented iconic images of life for Japanese Americans during WWII behind barbed wire. 

Developed by the Toyo Miyatake Studio and Miyatake’s grandson Alan Miyatake, the exhibition features selected examples of Miyatake’s work prior to WWII juxtaposed with his images of life in Manzanar incarceration camp — some photographed secretly before Miyatake was caught and rarely on public display.

Opening January 11, 2020 in recognition of the 78th anniversary Executive Order 9066, the wartime decree authorizing  the unlawful incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans through signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, and extended through April 19, 2020 for Photography Month Sacramento.