Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama was born on January 9, 1885, in Neu, a little village in Tottori Prefecture, western Japan. In 1904, at the age of nineteen, he sailed to San Francisco, where there was a growing community of Japanese immigrants, many of whom were shosei, or young student-workers. Kiyama was a talented artist, and while working at a variety of jobs he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. He excelled at life-drawing and painting, and between 1915 and 1920 won several awards and mentions. He also won a scholarship from the New York Art Students League and exhibited his work several times in San Francisco. An April 20, 1920, article in the San Francisco Bulletin reported on an exhibit at the Palace of Fine Arts, and described Kiyama's work as follows: "[His no. 115], Old Wagon Shed, is a solidly modeled, well balanced and vigorously colored design, and his 114, Old House at North Beach, in room 15, in soft green and gray, is quietly effective." Many of Kiyama's works survive today and are occasionally exhibited in the Yonago City Art Museum in Tottori Prefecture. He has a considerable reputation in the area of his birth, not as a cartoonist, but as an example of an early local artist who mastered Western art techniques. Kiyama lived in San Francisco off and on until 1937, eventually opening his own art studio at 1901 Sutter Street, in nihonmachi, or "Japantown." It was a period of intense discrimination and agitation against Asian, and particularly Japanese, immigrants. In 1937, Kiyama returned temporarily to his homeland. While he was there, war broke out between the United States andJapan. Unable to return to San Francisco, Kiyama taught art at a local high school in Neu, and continued painting. Henry Kiyama died on April 24, 1951, at the age of sixty-six. Cartooning was but a small part of his life, but the comic book he created in San Francisco may ultimately ensure his lasting fame. Between February 13 and 15, 1927, Henry Yoshitaka ...