Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani

GEB 233 • Craig Auditorium • 12:30 PM

Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani

Dr. Maki Kaneko, Kansas University Spencer Museum of Art
Associate Professor of Japanese Art

Street Nihonga presents the remarkable art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani (1920–2012), a Japanese American artist who adapted his training in traditional Japanese painting to his life on the streets of New York City when he was unhoused later in life.

His work conveys a profound narrative of resilience and creativity, set against the complex history of Japan and the United States in the twentieth century. With more than 120 works on view, this exhibition offers the first major opportunity for the public to encounter a substantial body of Mirikitani’s art. It highlights both his artistic achievements and his innovative approaches to storytelling through drawing, painting, and collage. The exhibition is co-curated with Kris Ercums, Curator of Global Contemporary and Asian Art at the Spencer Museum of Art and will open in February 2026

About Dr. Maki Kaneko

Maki Kaneko teaches courses on the history of Japanese modern/contemporary art, print, manga, and architecture from the seventeenth-century to the present and the arts of Asia Americans and Asian diasporas. Her research concerns the politics of memory, race, and gender in twentieth-century Japanese visual culture and the Asia-Pacific region. Her book Mirroring the Japanese Empire published in 2014 examines the representation and signification of the male figure in Japanese oil painting and cinema between 1930 and 1950, the decades when Japan engaged with a series of imperialist wars. Kaneko’s current research includes Japanese American diaspora artists, the history of “outsider art” in Japan, and gender and sexuality in contemporary visual culture.

About Kris Imants Ercums

Kris Imants Ercums is Curator of Global Contemporary and Asian Art at the Spencer Museum of Art, where he has curated over 30 exhibitions and 12 artist residencies since 2007. His curatorial practice focuses on Japanese art and visual culture, with recent projects engaging contemporary ceramics, postwar painting, and performance. Upcoming exhibitions include Form and Flux: Contemporary Ceramics from Asia and Brush, Block, and Blood: Three Generations of Yoshida Women Printmakers. He earned his PhD in Chinese art history from the University of Chicago in 2014 and is currently co-curating Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani with Maki Kaneko, opening February 2026.

Image Credit: Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, Cat Looking at Fish, circa 2001