Art historians are only just discovering the trove of artworks made by Japanese war prisoners and internees detained in camps throughout Australia and New Zealand during World War II.
On August 5, 1944, more than 1,000 Japanese prisoners of war staged an audacious escape from a camp in one of the deadliest events on Australian soil at the time.
Decades later, artworks made in the camp began to emerge in the central western New South Wales town of Cowra.
"The Japanese POWs had given these particular items to the Australian guards at the Cowra POW camp," secretary of the Cowra Breakout Association Graham Apthorpe said.
"They kept them at their homes for many years, but as they got older they decided they wanted to pass them on."
Mr Apthorpe said the preservation of such artworks was evidence of the amiable relationship between former rivals.
"To see that the Japanese, who basically were a hated enemy during World War II, there was a human side to them," he said.
"Even though it was still wartime, friendships had been formed between the prisoners and some of the guards."
"These artworks were just an example of how that peace was kept up there."
But Mr Apthorpe said it was a wonder how the detailed pieces were actually made.
"While there were some basic art supplies given to prisoners, they must have considerable initiative in putting their skills together in fairly basic conditions," he said.
Rich period of Japanese art
Flinders University art historian Tets Kimura has been studying artworks created by Japanese prisoners of war and civilian internees.
"They were actually encouraged, rather than discouraged to make the art products," Dr Kimura said.
He collaborated with associate professor Richard Bullen from University of Canterbury to publish an article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art.
"Ironically, the darkest period of Japanese history in Australasia is the region's richest period of Japanese art," the co-authors wrote.
More than 5,000 Japanese people were held in camps at Cowra and Hay in NSW, Tatura in Victoria, Loveday in South Australia and in other locations throughout New Zealand.
While the artworks created may lack in monetary value, Dr Kimura said they provided an insight into the lives and desires of those held captive.
"Studying of art objects is another way of learning their narratives," he said.
"It truly reflects upon what they felt or perhaps what they wanted to do."
Recurring visual motifs
The researchers observed works made in civilian internment camps, which held women and children, differed from those made in all-male facilities.
Internees at the camps in South Australia had access to native hardwoods for carving works, Dr Kimura said.
"They could actually use those timbers to make some wooden [objects] such as boxes or some sculptures," he said.
Meanwhile, imprisoned soldiers often created artworks displaying strong nationalistic symbols, he said.
"Works made by them carried strong Japanese identity in their paintings: Japanese castles, or the popular choice of Mount Fuji," Dr Kimura said.
Images of the red and white rising sun flag, along with depictions of women wearing kimonos and western dresses were common themes throughout the all-male environments, he said.
"They were missing home and they were missing women too," Dr Kimura said.
In his research Dr Kimura found other detainees made game pieces and playing cards using medicine, instead of paints, for colouring.
Call for public support
When the war ended in 1945, the majority of prisoners and interns were returned to Japan, with only about 100 civilians remaining in Australia, Dr Kimura said.
After their departure, there was no record of art being made by Japanese people in Australia until the mid-1980s, the researchers wrote.
Dr Kimura said his aim was to catalogue the wartime artworks throughout Australia, when pandemic restrictions finally ease.
He believes there are more similar items scattered throughout communities where war prisons and internment camps once existed.
"There is a quite a strong possibility some of those Japanese artworks are kept in your shed," he said.
"They may not be valuable to you, but they are valuable for art historians like us."
