Henry Moriya Takahashi

Dr. Henry Moriya Takahashi was born in Berkely, California in 1904. After studying optometry at the University of California Berkeley, he was the first Nisei, or second generation Japanese American, to practice in the United States. He was heavily involved in the Japanese-American community in the Bay Area and co-founded the San Francisco Japanese American Citizens League in 1928. During World War II, he and his family were forcibly removed to the Topaz War Relocation Center, an internment camp near Delta Utah that housed more than 10,000 people, prior to its closure in October of 1945. In 1965, Takahashi was elected a fellow of the Photographic Society of America. His work was included in the J. Paul Getty's exhibition Japanese Photography in America, 1920 - 1940, which traveled to five additional venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., from 1986-89.