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.
Scope and Contents:
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.
Biographical material about Ray Yoshida includes award certificates, identification records, student records, and interview transcripts. Also found is one video recording of a documentary short about Yoshida's art and object collection at his Chicago home.
Correspondence includes letters, postcards, and greeting cards from friends, colleagues, and artists, including Roger Brown, Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson, Christina Ramberg, Karl Wirsum, Miyoko Ito, Jin Soo Kim, Barbara Rossi, Vera Berdich, and Tom Kapsalis.
Notebooks contain notes on art history, art technique, Japanese language, travel, and other subjects. Many of the notebooks include sketches and contain loose items.
Writings by Yoshida consist of college papers, fragments of writings on art and other subjects, and notes. Writings by others include essays by Yoshida's students, exhibition essay drafts, and poetry.
Teaching records primarily document Yoshida's tenure as a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, though a few records of guest professorships at other schools are included. These records include course evaluations, employment records, teaching notes, and letters of recommendation for students. Miscellaneous teaching records include department memos, course summaries, correspondence, and notes.
Personal business records consists of documentation regarding the sale, exhibition, and loan of artwork by Ray Yoshida, including his business dealings with the Phyllis Kind Gallery. Additionally there are several files regarding the estate of artist Roger Brown.
Printed material includes exhibition catalogs, announcements, news clippings, newsletters and press releases documenting Yoshida's career and other subjects.
Source material consists of material that Yoshida gathered and intended to use for his art. Collected printed material includes postcards, comics and comic books, mail order catalogs, magazines, product labels, and advertisements. Also found are many small clippings from comics collected for collages.
Photographs depict Ray Yoshida, friends, students, travel, and artwork. Also found are a few photographs of Karl Wirsum's studio, as well as photographs of various subjects collected by Yoshida. Additionally, there is one photograph album from the early 1910s of an unidentified family.
Sketchbooks include pencil and ink sketches of various subjects.
Artwork by Ray Yoshida includes collages on paper, pencil sketches, and ink drawings. Artworks by others include numerous prints by Kathleen Blackshear, Ethel Spears, and Vivian Mayers, and collages, drawings, and prints given to Yoshida by students and friends. Some work by unidentified artists is included as well. Other artwork, such as handmade picture and alphabet books, appears to have been created by children and collected by Yoshida.
Scrapbooks include volumes that were created by Yoshida as well as books created by others. Three of the scrapbooks containing source images, clippings, and comics appear to have been created by Yoshida. Additional scrapbooks were created by others and collected by Yoshida.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 12 series.
Missing Title
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)
Biographical / Historical:
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.
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.
Restrictions:
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.
Rights:
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.
Ray Yoshida papers, circa 1895-2010, bulk 1950-2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
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.
An interview with Edwin Berman conducted 1984 Aug. 21-Dec. 21 by Patricia Erens.
Bergman speaks of his family background and youth in Chicago; early philanthropic activities in Jewish organizations; beginning his art collection; other collectors he has been associated with; meeting Joseph Cornell, getting to know him and collecting his work; his philosophy of collecting; the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and its history; his service on the Museum's board of trustees; why, in his opinion, there are so many Jewish collectors in Chicago; his civic activities.
Biographical / Historical:
Edwin Bergman (1917-1986) was a Surrealist art collector in Chicago, Illinois.
Provenance:
Donated 1986 by the American Jewish Committee.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Illinois -- Chicago Search this
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
Corrected and annotated mss. by Graham "Art History" with related notes (ca. 350 p. total); an autobiographical sketch, entitled "Autoportrait" (3 p. typescript); and an 8 p. summary by Angus Deming of an interview she conducted with Graham, Sept. 1960 in Paris.
Biographical / Historical:
Jack Mayer was an art dealer and owner of Gallery Mayer, New York, which handled the work of painter John Graham. Graham, born Ivan Gratsianovitch Dombrovski in Kiev, Russia in 1886 (baptised in 1881, hence the use of that year on many authoritative sources), came to N.Y. in 1920 and was a central figure among American avant-garde artists, especially from the late 1920s to 1940s. Graham was also a collector of African art which inspired an interest in primitivism in his work. Graham moved to Mexico in 1936. In 1937 he published Systems and Dialectics of Art, stimulating American artists interest in primitive art.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming by Jack Mayer, 1971.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
REEL 1052: 114 letters received relating to business matters, exhibitions, Woelffer's teaching career, and his friends. Correspondents include Robert Motherwell, Gerald Nordland, Mitchell Wilder, Matsumi Kanemitsu, Paul Jenkins, Charles Laughton, Joann & Gifford Phillips, Buckminster Fuller, Nathan Oliveira, Anne Weber, Annette Giacometti, George Wittenborn, John Baldessari, and others.
REEL 3482: Newspaper clippings and an article, 1948-1974, about Woelffer.
ADDITION (D.C.): Personal and business correspondence with artists, galleries, foundations, and others. Among the correspondents are Clinton Adams, Katharine Kuh, Robert Motherwell, Ed Ruscha, Aaron Siskind, Clay Spohn, June Wayne, and the Paul Kantor Gallery; and 2 b&w photographs of Woelffer with Mark Rothko in Boulder, Colo. taken by Woelffer's wife, Dina.
Biographical / Historical:
Surrealist and Dada painter, teacher, and art collector; Los Angeles, California. Born in Chicago. Moved to Los Angeles in 1959. Taught at the Chouinard Art Institute and the Otis Art Institute. Collector of primitive art. One of Southern California's most respected senior modernists, Emerson Woelffer (b. 1914) came to Los Angeles in 1959 to teach at Chouinard Art Institute (now California Institute of Art). He later taught at various Southern California institutions, most notably at Otis School of Art and Design. In 1961 he was a Tamarind Fellow. He continued to teach at Otis until his retirement in 1992.
Provenance:
Material on reel 1052 was lent for microfilming by Woelffer in 1976, and subsequently donated by him in 1993 with additional (unfilmed) papers. Additional papers were donated by Woelffer in 1996, and again in 1999, with more expected.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Addition: Use requires an appointment and is limited to AAA's Washington, D.C. office.
Letters, scrapbooks, and printed material documenting the development of the Shapiro's art collection. Correspondence, primarily from dealers, museums, art organizations and artists, includes letters from Enrico Baj, Aaron Bohrod (recommending Ben Shahn as a muralist), George Buehr, Jose Luis Cuevas, Leon Golub, Margo Hoff, Miyoko Ito, Sidney Janis, Ellen Lanyon, Pierre Matisse, Ida Meyer-Chagall (discussing her father's work), Abbott Pattison, Irving Petlin, Abraham Rattner, and Kay Sage Tanguy (discussing her husband's work). Printed material consists of 11 exhibition announcements and catalogs (1952-1984), and clippings (1965-1985).
Four scrapbooks (1943-1955) contain clippings, some dealing with the "Art to Live With" program, exhibition catalogs, a letter from Richard Daley (1958), a 3-page typescript "Surrealism Then and Now" by Doris Lane Butler (1958), press releases (1959), and a letter from R. J. Nedved of the Illinois Society of Architects (1967).
Biographical / Historical:
Born 1904. Died 1996. Joseph Shapiro began collecting in 1942 and was drawn to works in the Surrealist tradition. While establishing one of the most important art collections in Chicago, Shapiro and his wife Jory enjoyed personal friendships with artists and used their collection to educate and increase public appreciation of modern art in Chicago. Shapiro was a founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art and served on its board as President from 1967 until 1974.
Provenance:
Material on reel 3759 (fr. 1-320) donated 1986; and material on fr. 323-569 lent for microfilming 1986 all by Joseph R. Shapiro.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Journal, ca. 1944-1946, containing notes and quotations on art, religion, love, some of it in French; and sketches, executed in an account book formerly kept by a William Hawkins, which has an entry as early as 1846. It was either purchased by or given to Graham and used as a sketchbook.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, collector; New York and Mexico. Born Ivan Gratsianovitch Dombrovski in Kiev, Russia. His birthday is listed as 27 December, 1886 but after 1917 Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar changing the date to 7 January, 1887. He moved to New York in 1920, changing his name to John Dabrowsky Graham. He was a central figure among American avant-garde artists, especially from the late 1920's-1940's.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1970 by Mrs. Gertrude Stein, owner of the Gertrude Stein Gallery, 998 Madison Ave., NYC. Presumably Stein acquired the notebooks in her work as an art dealer. Additional notebooks in the John Graham papers on microfilm at the Archives of American Art.
Restrictions:
Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
