As Georgia O’Keeffe was to the landscape of New Mexico, artist Chiura Obata was to the grandeur of Yosemite. The national park in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains inspired the Japanese-born painter, who found in Yosemite a perfect embodiment of what he called “great nature” ( dai shizen in Japanese). His ink and brush paintings, scrolls and woodblock prints captured the transformative power of natural beauty on a monumental scale.
Related Stories Podcast Doc Talk Podcast: Alex Gibney On His Emmy-Contending Paul Simon Doc, Plus Elon Musk’s Angry Response To Hearing He’s Focus Of Gibney’s Next Film Podcast Doc Talk Podcast Dives Into ‘Black Twitter’ With Director Prentice Penny, Takes On Elon Musk’s Ownership Of Social Media Platform Obata’s work is explored in the new documentary Obata’s Yosemite , which can be seen on YouTube and the National Park Service’s website. Director Adam Prieto joins the latest edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to discuss his film and how Yosemite inspired his own spiritual journey. Kimi Hill , Obata’s granddaughter, also joins the pod, explaining how her grandfather’s work has recently been rediscovered almost 50 years after his death.
Obata’s art exudes a sublime and healing quality, and yet he faced many obstacles in his own life and career, much of them caused by prejudice against his Japanese background. He was incarcerated in the concentration camps set up in the U.S.
, during World War II, but Hill exp.