Kakudo started at the Asian Art Museum as a research assistant in the Avery Brundage Collection. She became the museum's first curator of Japanese art in 1970, and planned for the Japan Center gallery during its construction. She was also curator of the museum's Korean art collection until 1989. She curated more than thirty exhibitions, gave lectures, organized conferences, and wrote articles. She retired from the museum in 1994. Kakudo was also a translator, artist, and philanthropist. She had her family's tea house shipped from Osaka to donate it to the
Hakone Gardens in California. She was inducted into the Bunka Hall of Fame in 2012. In 2009, she established the Glenn Glasow Graduate Fellowship at the
California State University, East Bay, in memory of her partner, and supported the Father Michael Monchau Scholarship in Homiletics at
Graduate Theological Union. She donated photographs by
William Abbenseth to the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. ==Publications==