Border Shift
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 182.25 × 151.77 cm (71 3/4 × 59 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Gift of Vincent Melzac)
Accession Number
2015.19.136
Art Historical Context
**Border Shift** by Matsumi Kanemitsu, created in 1959, is a commanding oil on canvas measuring 71¾ × 59 inches, now housed in the National Gallery of Art part of the Corcor Collection (Gift of Vincentzac). This large-scale painting exemplifies the bold ambitions of mid-20th American art, where artists pushed the boundaries of abstraction during the post-World War II era. Kanemitsu, a Japanese-American, contributed to this dynamic scene, often drawing from his bicultural background to explore fluid forms and spatial tensions—hints of which resonate in the evocative title *Border Shift*. The m...
About the Artist
Matsumi Kanemitsu
Matsumi Kanemitsu (1922–1992), known to friends and colleagues as Mike, was born in Ogden, Utah, to Japanese immigrant parents and spent his early childhood in Hiroshima, Japan, with his grandparents. He returned to the United States in 1940 and enlisted in the U.S. Army the following year. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was arrested and confined in internment camps, an experience that marke...