Helen Chizu Tomita

Helen Chizu Tomita, a resident of San Mateo for nearly 90 years, passed away peacefully at home on July 8, 2020.

Helen was the daughter of the late Shinji Tomita and Kichiyo Doi Tomita. She was born in Ogden, Utah on November 13, 1926. Shortly thereafter, she moved with her family to San Mateo, where she attended Lawrence Grammar School, and spent one year at San Mateo High School. In March of 1942 she left San Mateo with her family when they self-evacuated to Pueblo, Colorado with other members of the Japanese American community during the war years. In 1944 she graduated from Manual Training High School in Denver, and later received both a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Colorado. She was then awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study painting in Japan, and, in 1955, a Rockefeller Grant to attend the International Institute for (Art) Conservation in Rome. Throughout this time Helen traveled widely in Japan, Europe, and the United States, delivering lectures at both universities and museums and conferring with fellow art experts. She also spent many hours engaged in creating original paintings of her own.