Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi and Min Okubo is an unprecedented exploration of three trailblazing Japanese American artists of the mid-20th century who, until now, have been excluded from the story of modernism in the United States. The exhibition asserts their place in American art and reveals a broader picture of the American experience by presenting their artworks and life stories in dialogue with each other for the first time. The exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museums main building in Washington, D.C., from Nov. 15 through Aug. 17, 2025. The museums presentation is the second stop on a national tour, organized by the Japanese American National Museum with exhibition curator ShiPu Wang, Coats Family Chair in the Arts and professor of art history at the University of California, Merced. Pictures of Belonging is coordinated at the Smithsonian American Art Museum by Melissa Ho, curator of 20th-century art, with Anna Lee, curatorial assistant for Asian American art. The Smithsonian American Art Museum plays a leadership role in telling richer and deeper stories about art in the United States, featuring new voices and presenting a more inclusive narrative of American art through acquisition campaigns, reimagined permanent collection galleries, new scholarship and special exhibitions, said Jane Carpenter-Rock, acting director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. I am delighted that SAAM is able to partner with the Japanese American National Museum to share with audiences in Washington, D.C., the incredible work of Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi and Min Okubo. The exhibition highlights the paintings of Hayakawa, Hibi and Okubo, complemented by drawings, sketchbooks, archival material and video footage. The artworks span eight decades, revealing the range and depth of these three artists careers and connections that have not been explored previously. A visual timeline puts their life events in context with each other and with key moments in U.S. history. The prolific careers of Hayakawa, Hibi and Okubo are remarkable considering that they lived through the Exclusion Era (18821965), a period characterized by U.S. laws that restricted immigration, prevented Asians from becoming naturalized American citizens and contributed to the mass displacement and incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. Hayakawa, Hibi and Okubo were the three most visible and critically acclaimed Japanese American women artists in the United States in the 1930s. During World War II, all three were forced from their homes in California. The federal government imprisoned Hibi and Okubo in incarceration camps, first in California and then in Utah; Hayakawa relocated to New Mexico. Yet all three remained committed to making art, their creative work a vital means of navigating their experiences and building bonds of community. By tracing the artistic development of Hayakawa, Hibi and Okubo before, during and after WWII, the exhibition offers the first nuanced and in-depth view of how each developed a distinct painting style. Hayakawa, who died young at age 53, displayed a special affinity for painting people early on and was known for her sensitive, luminous portraits. Hibi, over time, evolved from painting landscapes and still lifes to creating symbolically freighted canvases activated by abstract marks of color. Okubo, best known for her 1946 graphic memoir of wartime removal and incarceration, Citizen 13660, operated within the mainstream of American social realism in the 1930s, but turned to bold color, simplified forms and whimsical images of children and animals in later years. Collectively, their art, produced during tumultuous decades in U.S. history, carries powerful stories of resilience, beauty and connection. Pictures of Belonging demonstrates that the artists experience of incarceration and relocation during WWII, while pivotal, did not define them, stated Ho. These women continued to evolve and challenge themselves as artists throughout their lives. The exhibition includes works by Hibi and Okubo recently acquired for Smithsonian American Art Museums collection, part of a multi-year initiative to expand and enrich the representation of Asian American experiences, perspectives and artistic accomplishment in public displays and new scholarship. The exhibition opened at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City, Utah. Following the presentation in Washington, D.C., it will travel to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia; the Monterey Museum of Art in Monterey, Calif.; and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, Calif. The Smithsonian American Art Museum is the flagship museum in the United States for American art and craft. It is home to one of the most significant and inclusive collections of American art in the world. The museums main building, located at Eighth and G streets N.W., is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. The museums Renwick Gallery, a branch museum dedicated to contemporary craft, is located on Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W. and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Check for current hours and admission information. Admission is free. Smithsonian information: (202) 633-1000. Museum information (recorded): (202) 633-7970.