Untitled (Fine Arts Building)

Yuichi “Eugene” Idaka included his silhouetted reflection in this picture of the Boyer Photography Company’s store-front window. A Japanese American artist who graduated from the University of Chicago, Idaka made this photograph just after World War II ended, in the aftermath of Japan’s destruction by American atomic bombs and the closure of Japanese internment camps in the United States. Idaka’s melancholic reaction to this newfound peace is echoed by the small sign at the center of the image, which repeats the motto of the Fine Arts Building just south of the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue: “all passes, art alone endures.”