Label
IWATA CAMERA
1940s
Donated by Nicholas Agid, 1986
Patterning and painting by Richard Ankrom
Bending and wiring by David Svenson
From the historic Little Tokyo neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles, this massive double-sided camera sign has been restored with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. One side of this hand-painted sign was restored with new paint and the other side left as-is. Note the two tones of white-colored neon used to delineate the sign.
Jack Masaki Iwata was born in Seattle, Washington, but spent his formative years in Japan. It was at this time that his father gifted him his first camera, which sparked his interested in photography. He returned to the United States in 1928 to attend Whittier College in California while he also worked for his father. He began his photography career in 1937 as an employee in Toyo Miyatake’s photography studio in Little Tokyo. Due to World War II, Iwata and his wife were forcibly removed to the Manzanar concentration camp, where he reunited with Miyatake and organized the camp’s first photo lab. In 1943, Iwata and his wife moved to Tule Lake concentration camp where he reunited with his father. It was during this era of his life when Iwata produced the most powerful and moving photographs of his career, documenting the Japanese internment camps of World War II.
Iwata and his family returned to Los Angeles in 1946. After working for Miyatake, he briefly owned and operated his own photography studio and camera shop before joining Kyodo News Service as a “stinger.” He became well known for his celebrities photographs, including Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Bette Davis, and Elizabeth Taylor. He was a fundamental figure in the establishing of Kyodo News California in 1986. He continued working in Little Tokyo and making significant contributions in Japanese American arts and journalism until his death in 1992.