In this landscape, Chiura Obata demonstrated the combined influences of impressionistic Japanese moro-tai painting and American Impressionism and Tonalism. Here, washes of black sumi ink poetically evoke, rather than topographically depict, the ethereal landscape of coastal California. This stylistic unification of East and West reflects Obata’s commitment to a global view of art, which he promoted by cofounding the East West Art Society in 1921.

A native of Japan who immigrated to San Francisco in 1903, Obata was the most prominent practitioner in the Bay Area of the modern nihonga (Japanese painting) movement, which sought to reconcile the practices of traditional Japanese art making with contemporary European schools of art. Accompanied by his wife, Haruko Kohashi, who helped to introduce ikebana (the art of flower arrangement) to the Bay Area, Obata gave hundreds of public lectures and demonstrations that exposed audiences to the nuances of Japanese art and aesthetics.