1893–1953. Yasuo Kuniyoshi, a painter, photographer and printmaker, combined elements from his Japanese heritage with the naturalistic tradition of American painting to create distinctly individual works. Born in 1893 in Japan, Kuniyoshi came to the United States in 1906. After working on the West Coast, he moved to New York in 1910, where he began studying with Robert Henri at the National Academy of Design and the Independent School of Art. From 1916 to 1920, Kuniyoshi worked with Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League where he met artists such as Reginald Marsh and Peggy Bacon, who were known for their depictions of everyday life in the city. Kuniyoshi periodically exhibited with the Society of Independent Artists and had his first one-person show at the Daniel Gallery in 1922. After traveling to Europe in 1925 and 1928, he worked on the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration and began teaching at the Art Students League in 1933. In 1935 he became one of the founding members of the American Artists Congress. He served as the first president of the Artists Equity from 1947 to 1951, received the first one-person show of a living artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1948 and exhibited at the 26th Venice Biennale in 1952. Kuniyoshi died in New York in 1953.