Opening Reception: The Outsider Inside - Private Visions/Graphic Expressions - The Art of Munio Makuuchi

*Information about Exhibition

Munio Makuuchi 1934 – 2000, (born Howard Munio Takahashi) was a third-generation Japanese-American born in Seattle.  From 1941 to 1945 (World War II), he and his family were confined in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans in southern Idaho. One of ten facilities designed to contain around 120,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast, the Minidoka Relocation Center housed some 9,000 men, women and children from Alaska, Oregon, and Washington.  This forced relocation and pivotal childhood experience set the stage for a lifetime of visual and poetic works.  

Makuuchi studied art education, printmaking, and painting.  He earned a bachelor's degree in art education from the University of Colorado. He also earned two MFA degrees at the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  He taught at the University of Wisconsin at Janesville and at Adeyemi College and the University of Ife, Nigeria, Africa for a total of nine years. He retired from teaching and returned to Seattle in the mid-1980s.

He was known for his dark, large scale etchings, poetry and “aerogami” creations (elaborate folded and cut paper constructions of birds, planes and fabulous animals that fly).  He produced more than 200 etchings with a technique called drypoint, using a steel point to scratch designs onto a zinc or copper plate to create grooves that are filled with ink.

Makuuchi’s experience of internment was clearly pivotal to his artistic and personal development—his art is replete with images of movement and symbols of his Japanese-American heritage. His death at 65 and his generally anti-establishment attitude have all worked against widespread recognition of his work until now.

Son, Jamie Makuuchi, has made his works available for the exhibition.