FINE ART & MASTERPIECES SHOWCASE
Lot 42:
Untitled original work of art in wood frame on board, believed to be by listed artist, Miki McCrossen Hayakawa. This work of art came as a collection directly from the McCrossen family. Measures 23” H x 19” W. Miki Hayakawa was a painter in California and New Mexico of portraits and still lifes and was much influenced by the work of French artist Paul Cezanne. Born in Memuro, Hokkaido, Japan, she was the daughter of a Japanese Consul. In 1908 she arrived with her mother, Chiyo Hayakawa, to the San Francisco Bay area where they joined the father, Man Hayakawa. She defied the wishes and traditions of her father, a pastor, and left home as a teen-ager to become an artist. Earning scholarships, she received her formal art training at the California School of Fine Arts, where she won honorable mentions, and the California College of Arts and Crafts in Berkeley. She lived in the Bay Area—Alameda, San Francisco—until the late 1930s and then moved south to Pacific Grove and Monterey, and in 1942 to Stockton. She became very involved in California during the 1920s and 30s, exhibiting and earning awards for her work. Memberships included the San Francisco Art Association and San Francisco Women Artists. During WWII and after Pearl Harbor, the government relocated Hayakawa’s family to internment camps, first at Tanforan Assembly Center in San Francisco and then on September 17, 1942 to Topaz, Utah where they remained until their release on October 19, 1945. Miki was not in a relocation camp. By March, 1942, she was in Stockton, California, and in July and September of that year was in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she settled. Her parents returned to San Francisco after their release from Topaz in 1945. In Santa Fe in 1947, Miki married Preston McCrossan, a New Mexico weaver and dealer in American Indian art. She remained in Santa Fe, where she continued to paint, and worked with a group of artists that included John Sloan, Alfred Morang, and Jozef Bakos. In 1953, she died in Santa Fe.
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