In honor of Day of Remembrance, admission to The Noguchi Museum is free on Wednesday, February 19. Visitors are invited to reflect on the enduring impact and lasting lessons of Executive Order 9066 issued on February 19, 1942, which authorized the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Isamu Noguchi was exempt from the order as a New York resident, but he voluntarily entered the Colorado River Relocation Center in Poston, Arizona, hoping to enact programs and improve the conditions for fellow Japanese Americans there, a community that he had previously little known or identified with, but “of whom because of war I had suddenly become a part.”

From February 6–23, a selection of archival materials related to Noguchi’s incarceration in the Poston prison camp will be on view in the Education Studio (Level C). The selection includes letters from members of the Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy, an anti-fascist group Noguchi co-founded in early 1942, as well as prints representing two of Noguchi’s earlier public projects. Among these is a depiction of News, a commission for the Associated Press building at Rockefeller Center in New York, which resulted in widespread media coverage that Noguchi used as leverage for his activism.

To learn more about this archival display, or if you are a member of the Japanese American community and would like to make a group reservation or book a private guided tour in English or Japanese, please email education@noguchi.org.