Yukio Morinaga

Yukio Morinaga was born in Japan and emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s; he arrived in Seattle in 1907. He worked in the camera department of a local drug store where he met several other Japanese amateur photographers; together they helped found the Seattle Camera Club. Morinaga began exhibiting work at the Frederick and Nelson Salons in 1924 and went on to exhibit his work in national and international salons. Through the Seattle Camera Club he met Tacoma photographer Virna Haffer and they began a lifelong friendship and artistic collaboration. Morinaga became Haffer’s assistant, developing and printing the majority of her works, a relationship that continued until his imprisonment at the Minidoka Relocation Center during World War II. After his release he returned to Tacoma but never recovered his health or career. Although Morinaga produced hundreds of exhibition prints during his lifetime, only about thirty of his photographs have survived through the efforts of Haffer and her descendants.