Skip to main content Smithsonian Institution

Additional Online Media

Catalog Data

Creator:
Yoshida, Ray, 1930-2009  Search this
Subject:
Berdich, Vera  Search this
Blackshear, Kathleen  Search this
Brown, Roger  Search this
Ito, Miyoko  Search this
Kapsalis, Thomas Harry  Search this
Kim, Jin Soo  Search this
Nilsson, Gladys  Search this
Nutt, Jim  Search this
Ramberg, Christina  Search this
Rossi, Barbara  Search this
Spears, Ethel  Search this
Wirsum, Karl  Search this
Art Institute of Chicago. School  Search this
Phyllis Kind Gallery  Search this
Type:
Photographs
Sketchbooks
Scrapbooks
Collages
Drawings
Interviews
Prints
Sketches
Transcripts
Video recordings
Place of publication, production, or execution:
United States
Physical Description:
10 Linear feet
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 12 series. Series 1: Biographical Material, 1950-2005 (0.5 Linear feet; Box 1) Series 2: Correspondence, 1952-2009 (2 Linear feet; Boxes 1-3, 11, 15) Series 3: Notebooks, circa 1956-circa 2000 (0.3 Linear feet; Box 3) Series 4: Writings, circa 1950-2003 (0.3 Linear feet; Box 3) Series 5: Teaching Records, circa 1960-2003 (0.6 Linear feet; Boxes 3-4) Series 6: Personal Business Records, circa 1960-2010 (0.4 Linear feet; Box 4) Series 7: Printed Material, 1906-2010 (1.8 Linear feet; Boxes 4-6, 11, OV 14) Series 8: Source Material, circa 1940-circa 2005 (0.7 Linear Feet; Boxes 6-7, 11) Series 9: Photographs, circa 1910-circa 2005 (0.5 Linear feet; Box 7) Series 10: Sketchbooks, circa 1960-circa 2000 (1.1 Linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 11-13) Series 11: Artwork, 1903-2009 (0.7 Linear feet; Boxes 8, 13) Series 12: Scrapbooks, circa 1895-circa 2005 (1 Linear feet; Boxes 8-10, 13)
Access Note / Rights:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate copy requires advance notice. One box of letters from Jim Nutt are ACCESS RESTRICTED; use requires written permission.
Summary:
The papers of Chicago artist and educator Ray Yoshida measure 10 linear feet and date from circa 1895 to 2010, with the bulk of the material dating from 1950 to 2005. Yoshida's career as a painter and collagist as well as his long tenure as a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago are documented through biographical material, personal correspondence, notebooks and writings, teaching records, personal business records, printed material, source material, photographs, sketchbooks, artwork by Yoshida and others, and scrapbooks. Items within the collection also document Yoshida's personal interest in collecting folk art and artifacts.
Citation:
Ray Yoshida papers, circa 1895-2010, bulk 1950-2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
The bulk of the collection was digitized in 2017 and is available on the Archives of American Art's website. Materials which have not been digitized include blank pages, blank versos of photographs, duplicates, and some source material. In some cases, exhibition catalogs and other publications have had their covers, title pages, and relevant pages digitized.
Funding:
The processing and digitization of the Ray Yoshida papers received Federal support from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
Use Note:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Biography Note:
Ray Yoshida (1930-2009) was a Japanese American painter, collagist, and educator based in Chicago, Illinois.
Raymond Kakuo Yoshida was born in Kapaa, Hawaii, in 1930. He attended the University of Hawaii for two years and completed a B.A. in Arts Education at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953. He also served in the U.S. Army for two years during the Korean War. In 1957 he recieved his M.F.A from Syracuse University and became a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1959. He was named Frank Harold Sellers Professor in the Department of Painting and Drawing in 1971, retired as professor emeritus in 1998, and continued to teach until 2003.
Yoshida was a member of the Chicago Imagists, a loose and informal group of representational artists from the late 1960s to early 1970s who were influenced by Surrealism and connected to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yoshida's friends and contemporaries among this group include but are not limited to Roger Brown, Ed Paschke, Christina Ramberg, and Barbara Rossi. Yoshida was an inspiring teacher and he mentored many of the later Chicago Imagists such as Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, and Karl Wirsum.
Yoshida's paintings and collages were strongly influenced by comics as well as his own collection of folk and outsider art. He regularly exhibited at Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago from 1975 to 1996, and a major retrospective of his work was organized by the Contemporary Museum of Honolulu in 1998. He retired to Hawaii in 2005 where he lived until his death in 2009 due to cancer. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Sullivan Galleries held a posthumous retrospective exhibition of Yoshida's work from 2010-2011 and the John Michael Kohler Art Center had an exhibition of Yoshida's personal collection of art and artifacts in 2013.
Language Note:
Collection is in English and Japanese.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 2012 by Ray Yoshida via Terri Yoho of the Kohler Foundation, representing Yoshida's estate, and in 2013 and 2015-2016 by Jennifer Sabas and Shayle Miller, estate executors.
Digitization Note:
This site provides access to the papers of Ray Yoshida in the Archives of American Art that were digitized in 2018, and total 6,780 images.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Folk art -- Collectors and collecting  Search this
Art -- Study and teaching  Search this
Art -- History  Search this
Art -- Technique  Search this
Artists' studios -- Photographs  Search this
Asian American art  Search this
Asian American artists  Search this
Japanese American art  Search this
Japanese American artists  Search this
Asian American painters  Search this
Asian American educators  Search this
Theme:
Chicago's Art-Related Archival Materials: A Terra Foundation Resource  Search this
Asian American  Search this
Lives of artists  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)16081
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)360857
AAA_collcode_yoshray
Theme:
Chicago's Art-Related Archival Materials: A Terra Foundation Resource
Asian American
Lives of artists
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_360857