This hand-carved and painted bird pin (artist unknown) is part of The Art of Living: Japanese American Creative Experience at Rohwer at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

The Art of Living: Japanese American Creative Experience at Rohwer, an exhibition of art created by internees during World War II at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County, is on display at Concordia Hall Gallery, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 401 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock.

The astonishingly beautiful works, which include paintings, drawings, fashion illustrations, portraits, jewelry (made of on-hand materials such as soup cans, buttons and dried grass), crafts, carvings, and handmade sandals, are breathtaking in their grace, detail and intricacy. 

Admission is free. The exhibit will remain on display through Nov. 26. Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Call (501) 320-5700.

Rosalie Gould of McGehee donated her collection of artwork and other materials from the World War II-era Japanese American internment camp at Rohwer to the Butler Center, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System.

The collection includes several hundred paintings and other works of art produced by U.S. citizens of Japanese descent who were interned during World War II.

There were 10 such camps around the country, most in the western U.S. Two were in Arkansas, at Jerome and Rohwer.

Appraiser Jennifer Carman describes the materials Gould has given the Butler Center as "unique among internment collections" and cites experts Franklin Odo and Delphine Hirasuna who have said it contains artwork and documents that are "truly unmatched among objects in public collections." There is also material documenting day-to-day life in the camp, which had its own school system, police department, and mayor.

Internees worked with art teacher Mabel "Jamie" Jamison Vogel at the camp's high school. Many of them let her keep much of the art they created. Over the years since the war, Gould became a champion of preserving the camp -- which was dismantled after the war and essentially vanished -- and its story, and she and Vogel became close friends.

Gould was named in Vogel's will as the recipient of the entire collection, which includes hundreds of documents and photographs dealing with the schools, the town government, and many of the people who lived in the camp. A particularly important feature of the collection is a set of 185 handwritten autobiographies of internees dating from 1942.

The collection is also noteworthy because the camp sent several hundred men to Europe as part of the U.S. Army's 442nd Regimental Combat Team, said by many authorities to have been the most highly decorated American combat unit of World War II. Camp newsletters and other documents attest to the pride internees at Rohwer took in the service these men offered their country.

Gould has been visited over the years by representatives of numerous universities, including the University of Tokyo, along with staff members from the Smithsonian Institution, the Japanese American National Museum, and various auction houses, to examine the materials.

Related events include:

Dishongh Distinguished Lecture, 6:30 p.m. Sept. 15, Darragh Center, Main Library, 100 Rock St. (exhibit will remain open until 6:30 for pre-lecture viewing) Delphine Hirasuna, author of The Art of Gaman, will discuss the creativity of Japanese Americans interned in camps across the United States during World War II.

Legacies & Lunch, noon-1 p.m. Oct. 5, Darragh Center, Main Library. Vivienne Schiffer, daughter of Rosalie Santine Gould, will discuss her new book Camp Nine, a novel based on life at the Rohwer Relocation Center.