Toshio Aoki

He built a reputation as a storyteller, sketching comical figures and eventually landing an illustrating job with the San Francisco Call.

Achieving success in California through Nihonga, he created works that utilized Japanese imagery such as deities and icons from the Meiji period.

He was also known as a performer, hosting a cherry blossom dinner at Pasadena where J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller participated, as well as a craftsman due to his works of hand painted parasols and clothing sought out by the governor of Colorado and the vice president of the United States.

[1] Though he spent most of his life in San Diego, California, he made work in Pasadena during his later years due to social and economic limitations for the Asian exports.

Though known for his involvement in Japonisme art, he wasn't given positive recognition in his home country due to the racial obstacles he faced in America, being considered as a street performer in 1908 when working for G.T.

[5] Not much is known about his personal life aside from his marriage and divorce from a Caucasian woman during his early years in America and his adoption of Tsuru Aoki.

At 1898, Aoki met Tsuru and her guardians, raising her as they faced financial difficulty in California, using his career to provide for her boarding school at Colorado Springs.