After a career spanning nearly 70 years, Japanese-American artist Hideo Kobashigawa will finally hold an exhibition devoted solely to his works.
The show is to take place from November in Okinawa Prefecture, the land of Kobashigawa's ancestors.
The 83-year-old artist first started painting at age 14 and has since produced around 10,000 works, mainly oils and watercolors.
His works are characterized by lightly hued and riotous colors, said Tetsuro Shimojima, 59, a nonfiction writer who encouraged Kobashigawa to put on the show.
For many years, the artist said he had no time for such an event. Yet after suffering a stroke in late 1998, his friends managed to convince him otherwise, saying his works may face an uncertain fate in the future.
The exhibit, organized by the Okinawa Prefectural Government, will run in Naha and the town of Motobu, where Kobashigawa's family is from. Around 90 works will be on display, 20 of which will be donated to the prefecture.
Kobashigawa was born in Arizona. He went to Motobu at age 3 and returned to the U.S. 11 years later. After the end of the war, he moved to New York, but has been in a Los Angeles nursing home since last summer.