Hiromu Kira (1898-1991) was one of the most successful and well-known
Japanese American photographers in prewar Los Angeles. He was born in
Waipahu, O'ahu, Hawai'i on April 5, 1898, but was sent to Kumamoto,
Japan, for his early education. When he was eighteen years old, he
returned to the United States and settled in Seattle, Washington, where
he first became interested in photography. In 1926, Kira moved to Los Angeles with his wife and two young children.
Although he was never a member of the Japanese Camera Pictorialists of
California, a group that was active in Los Angeles at that time, he
developed strong friendships with club members associated with the
pictorialist movement of the 1920s and '30s such as K. Asaishi and T. K.
Shindo. In 1928, Kira was named an associate of the Royal Photography
Society, and the following year he was made a full fellow and began
exhibiting both nationally and internationally. He and his family were incarcerated in a concentration camp fin Arizona from 1942-44. Following his release, he lived briefly in Chicago
before returning to Los Angeles in 1946, where he remained for the
rest of his life. In Los Angeles, he worked as a photo retoucher and
printer for the Disney, RKO and Columbia Picture studios but never
exhibited again as he had before the war.