Jim Dong papers, 1972-1986

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Summary

Creators:
Dong, Jim
Abstract:
This mixed-media collection consists of Jim Dong's graphic artwork, photographs, and slides of the Asian American Theater Company, Kearny Street Workshop, Asian American Dance Collective, and the Asian American Jazz Festival. Other ephemera in the collection includes newspaper clippings, pamphlets, brochures, and flyers.
Extent:
5.59 linear feet 3 document boxes, 1 flat-oversize container, 1 flat-file drawer
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[Identification of Item], Jim Dong papers, CEMA 193. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Background

Scope and content:

The Jim Dong Papers were established in CEMA in 2018 and presently consist of his graphic art work, photographs, and slides of the Asian American Theater Company, Kearny Street Workshop, Asian American Dance Collective, and the Asian American Jazz Festival.

Biographical / historical:

James Gong Fu Dong, or Jim Dong, is a renowned printmaker, muralist, illustrator, and photographer who has exhibited widely in major museums and galleries around the San Francisco Bay Area. His mural paintings have been reproduced in national and international publications.

Born in 1949 in San Francisco's Chinatown, Jim Dong was raised at the Ping Yuen Federal Housing Projects. He attended San Francisco State University where he studied printmaking in 1967, earning his undergraduate degree, followed by a master's degree in drawing and printmaking in 1973. He has taught studio art at UC Berkeley and at San Francisco State University. He was a founding member of the Jackson Street Gallery (San Francisco, 1974-1978) and was the gallery's chief curator and artistic director.

Since 1990 Jim Dong has been an instructor in drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, design, illustration, and art history at the Kamehameha Secondary School's Kapālama Campus's Visual Arts Department in Hawaii. He and his family are residents of Kaneohe on Oahu Island since September of 1989.

Jim Dong applied his skills in printmaking by bringing to public attention many pressing national and international social and political issues and local concerns about his community. He founded the Kearny Street Workshop in San Francisco that became the most influential Asian American cultural arts center in the country and a model for grassroots community arts centers nationally during the mid-1970s. He served as the Workshop's director for its first 15 years.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Jim Dong, 2019.
Arrangement:

The collection is arranged into seven series; however, large-format graphic materials such as silkscreen prints, photographs, and other large-print items are arranged by size, shape, and storage needs in oversize boxes or flat-file poster drawers.

Series I, Slides: Contains color slides of various activities carried out by the Asian American Theater Company, Asian American Dance company, and the Chinese Cultural Center, inlcuding dance rehearsals, set designs from various plays, and outtakes.

Series II, Photographs: Contains mostly black and white and some color photographic prints of Asian American Dance Collective and Asian American Theater Company productions and performances, Kearny Street Workshop events such as the Asian American Jazz Festival, portraits of Asian American performers, and other events.

Series III, Ephemera: Contains flyers, announcements, and posters.

Series IV, Publications: Contains an illustrated children's book, various foundation and organization publications, a photograpic anthology, and articles.

Series V, Artwork: Contains graphic materials such as greeting cards, posters, and screen prints designed by Dong. A calendar from 1985, which compiles works from various Asian American artists from the Kearney Street Workshop, includes designs by Rich Tokeshi, Wes Aoki, Wes Senzaki, Mitsu Yashima, Nancy Hom, Stephanie Lowe, Barabra Jee Burgess, Leon Sun, Lena Chow, Gail Aratani, Chester Yoshida and Jim Dong.

Series VI, Audio-Visual Material: Contains two LPs for which Dong provided the cover art.

Series VII, Born-digital Material: Contains digital folders arranged chronologically that include digital portraits of Jim Dong, photographs and scans of Dong's artwork, and some duplicate records of analog items from previous series in the collection.

Physical location:
Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library
Physical facet:
Large-format graphic prints, black and white photographs, digital photographs, and publications
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Research Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Research Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Research Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of Item], Jim Dong papers, CEMA 193. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Location of this collection:
UC Santa Barbara Library
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9010, US
Contact:
(805) 893-3062
special@library.ucsb.edu
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