This important work of nonfiction features powerful images of the Japanese American incarceration captured by three photographers-Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams-along with firsthand accounts of this grave moment in history. Three months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the incarceration of all Japanese and Japanese Americans living on the West Coast of the United States. Families, teachers, farm workers-all were ordered to leave behind their homes, their businesses, and everything they owned. Japanese and Japanese Americans were forced to live under hostile conditions in incarceration camps, their futures uncertain. Three photographers set out to document life at Manzanar, an incarceration camp in the California desert: Dorothea Lange was a photographer from San Francisco best known for her haunting Depression-era images. Dorothea was hired by the US government to record the conditions of the camps. Deeply critical of the policy, she wanted her photos to shed light on the harsh reality of incarceration. Toyo Miyatake was a Japanese-born, Los Angeles-based photographer who lent his artistic eye to portraying dancers, athletes, and events in the Japanese community. Imprisoned at Manzanar, he devised a way to smuggle in photographic equipment, determined to show what was really going on inside the barbed-wire confines of the camp. Ansel Adams was an acclaimed landscape photographer and environmentalist. Hired by the director of Manzanar, Ansel hoped his carefully curated pictures would demonstrate to the rest of the United States the resilience of those in the camps. In Seen and Unseen, Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki weave together these photographers' images, firsthand accounts, and stunning original art to examine the history, heartbreak, and injustice of the Japanese American incarceration. AWARENESS OF AMERICAN HISTORY: This impactful book engages with an underrepresented topic in American history, and highlights important and timely themes like primary sources, censorship, and visual literacy. SUBSTANTIAL BACKMATTER: Featuring eighteen pages of backmatter, including an Author's and Illustrator's Note, footnotes, photo credits, biographies of each photographer, and more.

A major survey of contemporary artist Hung Liu, whose layered portraits explore history and memory through the stories of marginalized figures Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands presents the stunning work of this contemporary Chinese American artist. Liu (1948-2021) blends painting and photography to offer new frameworks for understanding portraiture in relation to time, memory, and history. Often working from photographs, she uses portraiture to elevate overlooked subjects, amplifying the stories of those who have historically been invisible or unheard. This richly illustrated book examines six decades of Liu's painting, photography, and drawing. Author Dorothy Moss illuminates the importance of family photographs in Liu's work; Nancy Lim examines the origins of Liu's artistic practice; Lucy R. Lippard explores issues of identity and multiculturalism; and Elizabeth Partridge focuses on Liu's recent series based on Dorothea Lange's Depression-era photographs. Philip Tinari, along with artists Amy Sherald and Carrie Mae Weems, among others, conveys Liu's impact on contemporary art. Having lived through war, political revolution, exile, and displacement, Liu paints a complex picture of an Asian Pacific American experience. Her portraits speak powerfully to those seeking a better life, in the United States and elsewhere. Published in association with the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Exhibition Schedule: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (August 27, 2021-May 29, 2022)