George Suyeoka, prolific artist who witnessed Pearl Harbor attack, dies at 89

George Suyeoka was a boy working on his paper route in Honolulu when he heard explosions and saw puffs of smoke at Pearl Harbor as Japanese fighter planes attacked.

Many of the nation’s Japanese-Americans moved quickly to prove their patriotism by joining the war effort. As a Nisei — the first generation of Japanese born in the United States — Mr. Suyeoka had bilingual skills that led to him becoming a translator for the Military Intelligence Service in Japan in World War II. Later, he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and became a sought-after illustrator, designer and sculptor.

He’s made countless visitors to Lincoln Park Zoo smile when they stop at his bronze water fountains. One, near the Lion House, is topped by a lion family. Another, near the African Journey exhibit, displays an ivory-tusked mother and baby elephant. When visitors bend down to sip, it’s as if they are joining the miniature animals at a watering hole. A larger tricorner fountain features creatures from Illinois, including a bunny, deer, fox, owl, squirrel and raccoon.

Mr. Suyeoka, 89, died March 12 at Westminster Place in Evanston.

He did commercial illustrations for Playboy magazine, textbook publishers and the World Book Encyclopedia. He also designed a catheter, IV tubing and pill dispenser for Abbott Laboratories, said his son, Genn. His fine art was exhibited as far away as Hong Kong, the Pentagon and Russia, said his daughter, Mia Suyeoka. Closer to home, it was displayed at the Beverly Art Center, the Chicago Cultural Center and the 57th Street Art Fair, and in galleries in Evanston, Oak Park, Florida, Santa Fe and Honolulu.

Mr. Suyeoka recalled the events of Dec. 7, 1941, in an interview with the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society. When he delivered papers on his route in Honolulu, he liked to watch the puffs of exploding shells from offshore military target practice, but this day was different.

“I could see the silver specks of aircrafts near the black puffs and it began to dawn on me that this was not the usual anti-aircraft pattern. I became concerned,” he said.

Then, “I looked toward Pearl Harbor and saw a heavy pall of black smoke rising and fading toward the sea. And I swear I thought I saw silver specks of aircraft diving in and out of the rising smoke,” he said.

“It must have been around 8 a.m. I could hear the fire engine, police and ambulance sirens blaring away. They appeared to be converging on Pearl Harbor.”

“That day,” he said, “I realized that my world had changed forever.”

Before the war, he lived in a “Japanese ghetto” in the Kaka’ako neighborhood, he said. It was before tourism turned Honolulu into a place of high-rise hotels and the commercialized luau. His family lived next to a boardinghouse that could charitably be described as colorful, according to Mr. Suyeoka’s son. The place often bristled with fights, gambling, domestic violence and police visits.

Mr. Suyeoka’s father died when he was 2. He hunted birds with slingshots. He and a brother caught crabs on the reef for dinner.

And “they would go octopus-hunting,” his daughter said. “They would put pots out and the octopus would crawl into the pot,” mistaking it for a cephalopodic hidey-hole.

“My dad didn’t own a pair of shoes until he was 15,” because in Hawaii, standard footwear wasn’t needed, Mia Suyeoka said.

“It was a difficult but kind of magical childhood,” his son said.

Unlike Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, most on the Hawaiian islands were not forcibly interned in government camps during the war. They comprised such a huge part of the population — about a third — that the Hawaiian economy would have collapsed without them.

Mr. Suyeoka served in Hokkaido, Japan, where he interviewed returning Japanese POWs who had been held in the Soviet Union.

He decided to use the GI bill to study at the School of the Art Institute. It was an exciting time to be an artist in Chicago. Small design studios with artists-for-hire thrived.

In Chicago, he met Irene Nishimoto, a California native who had been interned along with her parents in Jerome, Arkansas. Before internment, “They’d never seen snow,” their son said. Many West Coast Japanese-Americans lost farmland, businesses and homes during the war. Sometimes, their former neighbors moved in and took them. But her parents, Shinishi and Nancy Nishimoto, entered into a gentleman’s agreement with an African-American friend to buy their little store in Los Angeles. The transaction gave the Nishimotos seed money for a new life in Chicago after their release from the Arkansas camp. They lived near Division and Halsted.

“As soon as my dad saw my mom, he brought a jelly cake roll over to impress her,” Mia Suyeoka said.

They wed in 1952. A fellow student at the School of the Art Institute, she became an admired fiber artist. They raised their family in Chicago and Evanston.

He also worked as an illustrator for the Island Heritage series of books linked to Hawaii. Mr. Suyeoka did drawings for “Momotaro” (Peach Boy), the famed Japanese fable of a boy born from a peach who grows into a warrior, and “Issunboshi,” about an inch-high bodyguard to a princess who uses a needle for a sword. His favorite was “Urashima Taro,” about a turtle that carries a young fisherman under the sea for adventures.

As computers became a force in art illustration, he segued into creating wooden sculptures, many infused with left-of-center humor. One piece commented on President Barack Obama’s health care reform efforts amid Democratic and Republican bickering. The carving showed Obama crucified on the caduceus, a medical symbol with two snakes entwined on a winged staff. One snake had the head of an elephant; the other one, a donkey.

To the end of his days, Mr. Suyeoka had a weakness for Spam, which could be considered the official state meat of Hawaii. The tinned mix of ground pork shoulder and ham became popular on the islands when it was served to the many soldiers there in World War II.

He also is survived by a sister, Mary Jane Suyeoka. His wife died in 2010. Their ashes will be interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.