Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Guide to the California Asian American Artists Biographical Survey Records
SC0929
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Call Number: SC0929
Creator:
Stanford University
Title: California Asian American artists biographical survey records
Dates: circa 1850-2007
Physical Description:
25 Linear feet
Summary: 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.
Language(s): The materials are in English.
Repository:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6064
Email: specialcollections@stanford.edu
Phone: (650) 725-1022
URL: http://library.stanford.edu/spc
This collection is open for research.
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.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research
and educational purposes.
California Asian American Artists Biographical Survey Records (SC0929). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Biographical/Historical Sketch
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.
The materials found in the collection are the result of over ten years of work by researchers and students at San Francisco
State University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; Sacramento State University;
and Stanford University.
For a majority of these artists information is limited and may only consist of a listing in an exhibition catalog, a mention
in a newspaper, or a record in an enrollment document for an art school. We were however able to amass significant information
for 159 artists. Research sources consulted were primarily in English. Books, exhibition catalogs and other published materials
regarding specific artists in other languages were translated when possible.
With 1965 as the cutoff date for this project, we have used the criteria that artists must have been actively exhibiting or
studying in California by this time. Because of the date range of this project and the nature of immigration before the 1970s,
artists of Chinese and Japanese ancestry predominate in these files, with artists of Filipino and Korean ancestry being fewer
in number, and artists of other Asian ancestry not present at all.
The California Asian American Artists Biographical Survey Collection is composed of biographical files on more than one-thousand
artists active in California between 1850 and 1965, as well as reference files, and a limited number of files on artists active
outside of California. Materials were gathered during the research phase of the Asian American Art Project that culminated
in the publication of the book Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970, and the organization of the material reflects its
use for this purpose. (Please see "Introduction to Biographies of California Asian American Artists, 1850-1965" in Asian American
Art, A History: 1850-1970, for more detailed information regarding the research methods and criteria used to build this collection.)
The collection is composed of four series:
1. California Artists Files (entry artists)- files on 159 artists who are included in the biographical entries in Asian American
Art: A History, 1850-1970.
Files contain a range of materials including photocopies of secondary biographical source materials, information from census
records, photocopies of newspaper articles (including internment camp newspaper articles), photocopied materials from other
repositories such as the Archives of American Art and the Oakland Museum of California, original documents, interview transcripts
and some audiotaped interviews, and examples of artwork (ranging from photocopies to color reproductions). Some information
appears in the form of spreadsheets or other compiled documents produced by project researchers, and related materials and
original source materials can be found in series 4.Audiovisual materials and oversized documents have been pulled from files
and appear at the end of this series.
Abbreviations used in descriptions for these files include:
FAMSF: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
CPLH: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco
SFAI: San Francisco Art Institute (formerly know as the California School of Fine Arts)
LACMA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
SFMOMA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
SFAA: San Francisco Art Association
2. California Artists Files (non-entry artists)-files on 1,222 artists not included in the biographical entry portion of Asian
American Art: A History, 1850-1970.
Contents of files predominantly are photocopies of secondary biographical source materials, photocopies of newspaper articles,
and spreadsheets or other compiled documents produced by project researchers, with related and original source materials found
in series 4. In many cases a file in series 2 may only contain one document. There is no detailed description of the content
of files in this finding aid.
3. Non-California Artists Files- files on 91 artists not active in California for a significant portion of their career.
Contents of files predominantly are photocopies of secondary biographical source materials, photocopies of newspaper articles,
photocopied materials from other institutions, and spreadsheets or other compiled documents produced by project researchers,
with related and original source materials found in series 4.
4. Reference Files.
These files predominantly contain materials than have been photocopied and place in individuals artist files. Within series
4 are descriptive sub-series such as "Schools," "Exhibitions and Exhibition Records," "Internment," "Artist Clubs," in which
all pertinent information has been compiled.
Asian American art--19th century.
Asian American art--20th century.
Asian Americans--California.