Toyo Miyatake: Behind the Glass Eye

Toyo Miyatake was Japanese-American photographer and artist whose work has become immortalized as a part of Japanese-American history. These such works are recently exhibited at the California Museum and showcase a variety of both Japanese and American cultures of the WWII era.

Miyatake was an artist associated with the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles and has been well-known for his studio business and portraits that were contemporary of the 1930s (mostly). As an artist and apprentice Miyatake was mentored by Edward Weston and developed a friendship with him. Though Miyatake was an aspiring painter and a photographer by trade, he had no intent of innovating the two media as photography served as a source from which to finance his painting hobby. But Miyatake’s photographic trade led to success as a photographer in other areas.

As a tradesman and entrepreneur Miyatake was influenced by Weston, as well as a choreographer friend Michio Ito. Both friends had some influence on the style of Miyatake, and he later became an official photographer working for the Hollywood Bowl and producing black & white portraits that are characteristic of the Hollywood era of the 1920s-1930s.

During the internment of Japanese people during WWII Miyatake relocated, as an adult, with his wife and children, to the Manzanar camps. It was here that Miyatake got the idea to be a photo documentarian of the lives and events of the Japanese people. This role eventually led to Miyatake becoming the official photographer of Manzanar as he photographed from an insider’s perspective and became popular among the people.

As a subject of Manzanar Miyatake’s photographs are considered among the historical records of Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. In comparison of these works Adams’ and Lange’s approaches tend to be characteristically candid and casual, while Miyatake’s photos tend to be more straightforward and posed. Based on the subject of Manzanar the photos are very “Asian” or Japanese, however, it is Miyatake’s Hollywood photos and their characteristic stylings that lack any hint at the fact that the photographer might be ethnic. Based on the commercial subjects, Miyatake’s work is only telling of the photographic media and the “Hollywood” aesthetic of the time. In contrast, the Manzanar photos are of a very good quality, but the studio portraits speak impressively of a commercial quality and skill of the technician.