LACC Alumna Hisako Terasaki

LACC alumna Hisako Terasaki is a second generation Japanese American who grew up in Boyle Heights, just east of downtown Los Angeles. Her parents, Shuichi and Chizu Sumioka, had a flower shop on the corner of 1st and Fickett Streets. When she was a young teenager, she, her sister Tokiko, and her parents were interned at the Poston, Arizona relocation camp. During the period of hardship after the war, Hisako enrolled at LACC to study Art. In 1954, she married Paul I. Terasaki, who had a distinguished career as a pioneer in human organ transplant technology. Hisako learned copper plate printing while raising four children and had several exhibitions of her work over the years.

In 2019, In honor of Hisako’s 90th birthday, her children started the Hisako Terasaki Art Scholarship that provides merit-based scholarships for talented art students with financial need.

In support of the Hisako Terasaki Art Scholarship, the VAMA Gallery is hosting Watercolors by Hisako.  Featured in the show are over thirty watercolors highlighting the delicate brush strokes that bring life to the fragility of nature. Hisako has also reprinted some images using intaglio and are on display in black and white. 

The Gallery is open Monday – Thursday 12pm-4pm, until July 14th.  Special viewing arrangements can be made by emailing Michele Wolfson at wolfsoma@laccd.edu. 

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