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Description
Signed in medium, bottom left corner: H. Sugimoto. Written on back, top center: Documentary, 32 x 23, Going to Shower Room in Fresno Assembly Camp, by Henry Sugimoto, July 1942 On left, a woman wearing a blue robe carries soap, towel and a bottle in a bowl in her right hand and holds the hand of a red-robed little girl in her left as they walk towards a shower room. Her hair tied back, the woman looks down over her right shoulder at the little girl who holds a little cup in her left hand. Both have robes tied with bows in front and wear color coordinated geta. Directly behind them on the right stand three giant sunflowers and in the distance barracks are visible. Stretched and unframed. Sugimoto feared that his paintings of camp life would arouse suspicion. In a 1982 interview (published in "Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps") he recalled, "First time, I was scared. Maybe the FBI is [looking] at me painting, and I will be taken away."
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