Rich and evocative paintings from an underrecognized Japanese American abstractionist.

The result of several years of research, Heart of Hearts is the first book dedicated to the life and work of Japanese American artist Miyoko Ito. Ito was born in Berkeley, California to parents of Japanese descent and educated at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied watercolor. A month before her graduation, in 1942, Ito was sent to the Tanforan Assembly Center, an internment camp south of San Francisco. Released several years before her husband, she transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago but never graduated. Unlike the other “Allusive Abstractionists” with whom Ito was loosely associated, her geometric compositions often evoke landscapes, interiors and the human body. Irregular forms are rendered in layers of paint applied horizontally, creating an ombré effect reminiscent of a sun over the horizon. Paperback, 470 pages.