the confiscation and shipment of Japanese war record paintings

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2 discussed extensively in various publications, including newspapers and art magazines, war record paintings were also shown around Japan in well-publicized exhibitions sponsored by the military and the Asahi Newspaper. When World War II ended, many of these war record paintings were confiscated, informally at first, by personnel of the Office of the Chief Engineers of the Allied Powers. The confiscated paintings were later exhibited at the Tokyo Municipal Museum (currently, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum) in Ueno Park, exclusively to Allied personnel in late 1946. These were later kept in storage at the same institution. Towards the end of the Occupation, the paintings were shipped to the United States. During this period of confiscation, storage and shipment of the paintings, a number of lists were created as part of their documentation. In 1970, the confiscated war record paintings made their way back to Japan under the terms of an “indefinite loan.” The paintings are now under the care of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. This paper owes its origins to the pioneering works on the subject of the confiscation of Japanese war record paintings by Hirase Reita and Kawata Akihisa. In separate papers, Hirase and Kawata were the first to extensively explore the confiscation of the war record paintings by the Allies. Both scholars discussed different listings of confiscated paintings. However, this paper will focus on Occupation-era lists created by Allied personnel to document the confiscation and shipment of the paintings. Using their works as foundations, new attempts will be made to fill-in the critical gaps in these previous works by introducing newly-uncovered documents. Different lists created by the confiscation authorities will be analyzed, some already introduced in previous studies like Hirase's papers entitled “War Art and America.” 3 Most of the lists in this paper, however, have only recently come to light. The present list of 153 war record paintings under indefinite loan at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo will be used as a benchmark for the comparison of the lists created during the Occupation era. By comparing the different lists created at various stages of the confiscation process, an attempt will be made to address some questions regarding the confiscation process. For example, how many paintings were officially confiscated by the Allies? Were there paintings confiscated but not listed as such? Is there a possibility of more confiscated Japanese war paintings currently in the custody of the US? 3 Hirase Reita, “Sensōga to Amerika (War Art and America),” Bulletin of Himeji City Museum of Art, no. 3 (1999): pp. 8- 10.
3 II. Description of Lists As mentioned earlier, a number of lists were created by Allied personnel to document the confiscation and shipment of Japanese war record paintings. These are the following: A. The MacArthur List This list was sourced from the MacArthur Memorial Library and Archives in Norfolk, Virginia. 4 The list contains 152 items, the least amount of entries in all the lists that will be presented. It does not bear any date but the number of paintings in the list suggests that it is the earliest listing of the confiscated paintings. The information in this list include the following: catalogue number, the name of the artist, title of the work, when the painting was created and where it was found at the time of confiscation. B. The 1947 List This list bears the date “18 November 1947” and was earlier introduced by Hirase Reita in his paper on the same subject “War Paintings and America.” 5 The list was constructed from loose files of photographs and index carded information. These can be found at the Modern Japanese Political History Materials Room of the National Diet Library in Tokyo. 6 The original documents can be found at the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States. The 1947 list basically contains the same information as the MacArthur List. However, the 1947 list contains FEC numbers. “FEC” mostly likely means “Far Eastern Commission” and the numbers refer to the negatives of the photographs that came with the index-carded information. 7 The 1947 list contains 153 items, one item more than the MacArthur list. C. The 1951 List Like the 1947 list, this list was also constructed from a set of loose files found in microfiche form at the National Diet Library. 8 The files carry the date “24 July 1951,” only 2 days before the paintings were taken out of storage from the Tokyo Municipal Museum in preparation for their shipment to the US. 9 The information in this list are essentially the same as the 1947 list and the 4 “Catalog Index of Japanese War Art Paintings,” Record Group 12: Collection of Photographs, PHA 140, MacArthur Memorial Library and Archives. 5 Hirase, 1999, pp. 8-10. 6 “Tab A – Photographs of Japanese War Art Paintings,” 18 November 1947, microfiche, CIE (C) 06748 – CIE (C) 06752, Modern Japanese Political History Materials Room, National Diet Library, Tokyo. 7 “Japanese War Painting,” 2 June 1951, microfiche, CIE (B) 00818, ibid. 8 “War Paintings,” 24 July 1951, microfiche, CIE (C) 06746 - CIE (C) 06747, ibid. 9 Shipment of confiscated Japanese war record paintings started on 26 July 1951. “Shipment of Japanese War Paintings,” 13 October 1951, microfiche, CIE (C) 06719, ibid.
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the confiscation and shipment of Japanese war record paintings

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