Paul Horiuchi

Paul Chikamasa Horiuchi (堀内 親正, April 12, 1906 – August 29, 1999) was an American painter and collagist.

He was born in Yamanashi, Japan, and studied art from an early age.

Paul Horiuchi was born Chikamasa Horiuchi on April 12, 1906, in the village of Oishi, on the shores of Lake Kawaguchi, near Mount Fuji, in Japan.

He was the second son of Daisaku Horiuchi, a cabinetmaker and Kabuki singer, and his wife Yasu.

His father departed for the United States when Chikamasa was a few days old, followed by his mother four years later.

Chikamasa and his older brother Toshimasa (later known as "Tom") were raised by their grandfather, Tokutaro Horiuchi, an antiques collector.

Horiuchi was a runner in his early teens, his best time for the 100-meter dash reputedly tying the Olympic record.

He was nominated for Japan's Olympic team, but had to stop running due to an enlarged heart.

Under Iketani, a locally prominent artist, Horiuchi studied traditional sumi-e (or ink wash) technique, and won second prize in a nationwide landscape painting competition.

When Chikamasa was fourteen, his older brother left to join their parents in America, and Chikamasa followed suit two years later, boarding ship for the United States on December 21, 1920.

A few days later, he arrived in Seattle, where he was greeted by his older cousin Shigetoshi Horiuchi, a trader and collector of Asian art whose connections in Pacific Northwest art circles would later prove helpful to Chikamasa.

He then traveled on to meet his family in the busy railroad town of Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Although he had never seen his father before, he recognized him immediately by his resemblance to Toshimasa.

Daisaku was working for the Union Pacific Railroad as a maintenance foreman in nearby Kanda, Wyoming, and it was there that Chikamasa met his seven- and eight-year-old American-born sisters and three-year-old brother for the first time.

Chikamasa began working for Union Pacific with his father.

To get around company rules forbidding family members from working on the same gangs, he adopted his mother's maiden name, Kamakura, and was thus known as Chikamasa Kamakura for many years.

He also fudged his age, from 15 up to 16, and learned accent-free Spanish from Mexican fellow laborers.

By age 17, he was a section foreman.

When Horiuchi had been in the U.S. for about a year, his 45-year-old father died of stomach cancer and his mother returned to Japan with the three younger children shortly afterwards.

Chikamasa and Toshimasa were left with very little money to live on as they tried to both support their mother and pay off debts which their father had incurred.

In 1929, the brothers opened a radio sales and repair shop, but it was soon lost in the Great Depression, and they returned to work on the railroad.

Horiuchi painted in his free time, mostly doing landscapes in the Sumi-e style, but experimenting with more modern American and European approaches as well.

He received some notice in newspapers in Wyoming and Utah.

During trips to Seattle to visit his cousin Shigetoshi, he met and befriended the painters Kenjiro Nomura and Kamekichi Tokita, who were important influences.

He also became friends with Tamotsu Takizaki, a zen master and Kendo instructor who would play an important role in shaping his career.

In 1934, during a visit to Seattle, he met and fell in love with Bernadette Suda, who was seven years younger than he.

Shigetoshi and Takizaki helped arrange their courtship, and, after Horiuchi converted to Roman Catholicism and changed his first name to "Paul" in homage to Paul Cézanne, they married in Seattle in 1935.

On moving back to Rock Springs with her new husband, Bernadette was shocked by life in Union Pacific company housing, which had neither electricity or indoor plumbing, but soon adapted.

They had two sons, Paul, Jr. and Jon (a third, Vincent, was born later, in Seattle).

In 1937, Horiuchi, who had continued to use 'Kamakura', officially reverted to his real last name.

Although conditions were rough in Wyoming, Horiuchi was making good money, was able to purchase a new car, made regular trips to visit friends and family in Seattle, and continued to develop his painting skills, often using his wife and children as subject matter.

In 1938, paintings of his were included in Annual Exhibitions at the Oakland Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Seattle Art Museum.

The advent of the Second World War brought extreme hardship for the Horiuchis.

They lived far enough inland that they were not subject to forced relocation, but all Japanese were immediately fired by Union Pacific and evicted from company housing.

People of Japanese ancestry were often physically threatened, and denied decent work and housing.

After immigrating to the United States in his early teens, he spent many years as a railroad worker in the Western U.S. In 1946, he moved to Seattle, Washington, where he eventually switched his focus from painting to collage and came to be associated with the "Northwest School" of artists.

In his mid-forties, he was finally able to devote himself to art full-time, his unusual collage style becoming very popular in the 1950s and 60s.

He continued creating art at his studio in Seattle until succumbing to Alzheimer's-related health problems in 1999.

Today, he is best known to the public for his glass mosaic backdrop to the Seattle Center's Mural Amphitheater.

His paintings and collage remain highly prized by collectors, are on permanent display at several museums, and continue to be the subject of special exhibitions at various museums and galleries.