The collection contains biographical files on more than 1000 artists active in California between 1850 and 1965, biographical files for 91 artists not active in California, and reference files. Biographical files contain exhibition records, catalogs, press coverage, and examples of art work (in the form of slides or photographs); in some cases there is also correspondence and/or interviews. Some materials may be photocopies. The reference files contain similar materials but are arranged by subject. Because of date range of the project and the nature of immigration before the 1970s, artists of Chinese and Japanese ancestry predominate in these files.

The California Asian American Artists Biographical Survey Collection, was begun as a project of San Francisco State University in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, and was initially funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The collection has been housed at Stanford University since 2003 as part of the Asian American Art Project directed by Gordon H. Chang and Mark Dean Johnson.

25 Linear feet

All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94304-6064. Consent is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubserv/permissions.html.

This collection is open for research.