1925 Yun Gee and SFAI

Yun Gee, Self-portrait                                                         Yun Gee, Head of Woman with Necklace, 1926

Yun Gee, Houses on the Hill, 1926              Yun Gee with Chinese Revolutionary Artists Club

Yung Gee studied at the School from 1925 through 1927 having arrived in San Francisco in 1921 after being imprisoned and interrogated at Angel Island.  His painting teacher, Otis Oldfield, helped Yun Gee make ends meet and was supportive of his founding of the Chinese Revolutionary Artists Club at 150 Wetmore in Chinatown. Yun Gee's friends included Dorr Bothwell, Victor Arnautoff, Kenneth Rexroth, and Ruth Cravath.  Yun Gee is credited with promoting modernist avant-garde art amongst not only Chinese American painters but also artists of the Pacific Rim with his founding of one of the first artist-run galleries in SF,, the East West Gallery.

For more on Yun Gee, check out Paul Karlstrom's essay:

https://yungee.com/a-modernist-painters-journey-in-america-by-paul-karlstrom

With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.

Alumni: Hisako Shimizo and Matsusaburo Hibi

1942

Hibi family awaits evacuation in Hayward, California on 8 May 1942, photo by Dorothea Lange. Painting by George Matsusaburo Hibi

George Matsusaburo Hibi and Hisako Shimizo met at the School in the 1920s, married in 1930 and continued to be a part of the thriving 1930s Bay Area arts community. While a student, George Hibi worked as a gardener, custodian, store clerk, a class assistant, and taught batik. In 1942 the Hibi family was interned first at Tanforan and then at Topaz, Utah where both continued to draw and paint, sending work back to SF to be displayed in the SFAA Annuals.

Christo lectures

Christo lectures (shown here on the right with sfai president, Arnold Herstand and faculty member, Richard Fiscus) and recruits student helpers for his project Running Fence which traverses the length of the border between Marin and Sonoma Counties.

With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.