Paintings on display at the Whitney this winter explore World War II incarceration

Japanese American artist Roger Shimomura and his family were incarcerated in camps in Washington and Idaho during World War II. His series, “Minidoka on My Mind,” reflects on that experience and race relations at the time.

Whitney Western Art Museum Curator Susan Barnett describes his painting, Shadow of the Enemy.

“ In this painting, you can see a young girl wearing pigtails jumping rope outside the barracks of a World War II incarceration camp,” Barnett said.

But Barnett points out you don’t actually see the girl. You see her shadow.

“And so the title, Shadow of the Enemy, has such great irony, to think of the enemy as this little girl in pigtails.  You could also see them [the pigtails] as horns and think about how these people have been demonized. She’s just a little girl jumping rope, but here she is in an incarceration center,” Barnett said.

Three paintings that are part of the “Minidoka on My Mind” series will be on display in a special section of the Whitney Western Art Museum the winter of 2024–2025.