Tokio Ueyama

Born in Toyajyo Village (now Aridagawa Town), Arida District, Wakayama Prefecture. After graduating from elementary school, Tokio entered Taikyu-sha (now Taikyu High School). Having his father’s understanding, Ueyama left school and emigrated to the United States alone in 1908 at the age of 19. He studied art at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in San Francisco, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he was awarded as an outstanding student and received the Cresson Traveling Scholarship for his study in Europe in 1920.
After returning to Los Angeles in 1921, he organized the Japanese artist group Shaku-do-sha with Shiyei (Yukie) Kotoku, Sekishun Ueno, Boshicho Okamura, holding exhibitions in 1923 and 1927. In 1925, Ueyama visited Diego Rivera in Mexico. In 1936, with the proceed of his paintings at his second solo exhibition, he could return to Japan for the first time since his settlement in the United States. During this stay, he met his sick father and exhibited the paintings he brought from Los Angeles and a new plein-air painting at his elementary school. He traveled around Japan and returned to Los Angeles after a year.
During World War II, Ueyama was interned in Santa Anita Assembly Center, then in Camp Amache, where he served as an art teacher. After the war, Ueyama returned to Los Angeles and opened a variety store Bunkado. In the same year, he organized an art lovers’ circle, the Palette Club, and kept playing a central role in the Los Angeles art community until his passing away in 1954.