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Title
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Roger Shimomura
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Description
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Roger Yutaka Shimomura was born in Seattle Washington on June 26, 1939 and is a third generation Japanese-American (“Roger Shimomura” 2019). He was born three years before the executive order that mandated the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII (“Roger Shimomura” 2019). Following his release from the camps, he lived for a time in South Chicago and later returned to Seattle in 1945 (“Roger Shimomura” 2019). He lived in a district with many other Japanese Americans. Shimomura attended the University of Washington and earned his graduate degree from Syracuse University (“Roger Shimomura” 2019). He taught at Kansas University beginning in 1969, where he was known for being very tough on his students. He retired in 2004 (“Roger Shimomura” 2019).
Shimomura’s art combines American pop culture images, like superman, with Japanese woodblock prints that are inspired by his own experiences with racism. He also draws from the diaries of his grandmother which she kept over a fifty-six year period (“Roger Shimomura” 2019). His work has been known to explore the emotional and psychological hardships of internment experiences (“Roger Shimomura” 2019). While he was a professor he looked at the complexities of American cultural identity and the challenges of being Asian American in the U.S. (SisumD 2019).
This portrait is of Shimomura as George Washington crossing the “Delaware” with Samurai soldiers. The original work is the well-known American painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutze (1851). Traditionally this body of water is the Delaware River, however Shimomura decided to make it resemble San Francisco Harbor, and the Angel Island immigration station is part of the background (SisumD 2019). He uses the traditional, Japanese Edo period ukiyo-e woodblock print style (although here, he paints the image in acrylic on canvas), common since the 17th century. Shimomura uses this work as a way to “discuss Americanism and patriotism and how the two ‘isms’ apply to all Americans across racial and ethnic lines (SisumD 2019)”. It is possible that Shimomura is exploring the idea that Japanese Amerians and other immigrants perhaps made equally meaningful contributions to America than a figure like George Washington.
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Alternative Title
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Shimomura as George Washington crossing the “Delaware” with Samurai soldiers.
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Source
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“Roger Shimomura.” 2019. Smithsonian American Art Museum. 2019. https://americanart.si.edu/artist/roger-shimomura-5882.
“Roger Shimomura - APA.” 2025. APA. April 9, 2025. https://apa.nyu.edu/affiliate/roger-shimomura-2012-13/.
SisumD. 2019. “Shimomura Crossing the Delaware.” Npg.si.edu. September 11, 2019. https://npg.si.edu/learn/classroom-resource/shimomura-crossing-delaware.
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Name
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Kirin Lennon
