Skip to main content Smithsonian Institution

Oral history interview with Tyrus Wong, 1965 January 30

Online Media

Catalog Data

Interviewee:
Wong, Tyrus, 1910-2016  Search this
Interviewer:
McGlynn, Betty Lochrie Hoag  Search this
Subject:
Buck, Frank E. (Frank Eugene)  Search this
Jeakins, Dorothy  Search this
Jones, Joe  Search this
Macdonald-Wright, Stanton  Search this
Murry, Jerre  Search this
Newell, Gordon  Search this
O'Hara, Eliot  Search this
Stanley, George M.  Search this
Winter, Carl  Search this
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project  Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Place of publication, production, or execution:
United States
Physical Description:
28 Pages, Transcript
General Note:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 48 min. Only the second half of this interview was successfully recorded.
Access Note / Rights:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Summary:
An interview of Tyrus Wong conducted 1965 January 30, by Betty Hoag, for the Archives of American Art.
Wong discusses making a film for grade schools and UCLA, which was produced by Eliot O'Hara, where he demonstrated Oriental painting techniques and Joe Jones demonstrated American techniques; working as an illustrator for Republic Studio; designing pottery plates for Greenfield Pottery, Gabriel Pottery in Pasadena; illustrations for the Western Art Review magazine; covers for the Los Angeles Times Home Section 1954 & 1955; text and illustrations for Watercolor Portraits, 1949; designing ads for various magazines; and doing watercolors, lithographs, and murals for the WPA, including the Santa Monica Library. Wong recalls Surasawa, Dorothy Jeakins, Nick Berganti, Hideo Dati, Benjy Ocobo, Carl Winter, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Jerre Murry, Steven LaVerne Dunwell, George Stanley, Gordon Newell, and Frank Buck.
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Tyrus Wong, 1965 January 30. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Biography Note:
Tyrus Wong (1910-2016) was a Chinese American painter, designer, illustrator, and printmaker based in California.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Federal aid to the arts  Search this
Painting, Asian  Search this
Chinese American art  Search this
Chinese American artists  Search this
Asian American art  Search this
Asian American artists  Search this
Asian American painters  Search this
Asian American illustrators  Search this
Asian American printmakers  Search this
Theme:
Asian American  Search this
New Deal  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)13010
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)216544
AAA_collcode_wong65
Theme:
Asian American
New Deal
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_oh_216544