"In 2002, filmmaker Beth Harrington visited Tacoma's Washington State History Museum during a road trip and saw an exhibit of Edward S. Curtis' photographs. It included work by some of his lesser-known contemporaries, and one, Frank Matsura, "just leapt out at me," Harrington said. His work "had a completely different character." Matsura's charisma and deep connection to his subjects illuminates his black-and-white photographs. A Japanese immigrant, Matsura created images of people he knew, even posing playfully alongside his subjects, a varied mix of white settlers in Okanogan, Washington, and Indigenous people on the Colville Indian Reservation."
"From 1903 to 1913, Matsura lived and worked in Okanogan County, dying there at age 39 from tuberculosis. Beyond those details and the thousands of images he left behind, little of his life was documented. But over a century later, the communities he photographed still remember him fondly. "Frank Matsura is just somebody that you fall in love with," Harrington said. The documentarian moved to the Northwest from Boston in the early 2000s, but it was nearly two decades before she could tackle Matsura's enigmatic legacy. In 2025, she completed a feature-length documentary, Our Mr. Matsura."
"Last September, Douglas Woodrow was one of about 300 people who gathered at the restored Omak Theater for a screening of the film. "I grew up in Okanogan," Woodrow told High Country News, "and the local newspaper would post pictures of the past, usually by Frank Matsura." As a kid in the late 1950s, Woodrow biked to the locations of these old photos and was "astounded" by the changes, imagining the majestic three-story Bureau Hotel, which bu"
Frank Matsura was a Japanese immigrant photographer who lived and worked in Okanogan County from 1903 to 1913, producing thousands of black-and-white images. He photographed a varied mix of white settlers and Indigenous people on the Colville Indian Reservation, often posing playfully alongside his subjects and demonstrating charisma and deep personal connection. Matsura died at 39 of tuberculosis, and few biographical details survive. Communities photographed by Matsura continue to remember him fondly. Filmmaker Beth Harrington completed a 2025 feature documentary, Our Mr. Matsura, and public screenings have attracted several hundred local attendees.
Read at High Country News
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