Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Staff Favorites: Tomás Ybarra-Frausto Research Material on Chicano Art

Hispanic Heritage Month 1998, Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Introduction

In 1998, Archives Technician Rosa Fernández selected a variety of documents while preparing a display for the Smithsonian's Hispanic Heritage Month. The selection was subsequently displayed in in the Archives of American Art's New York Regional Center, and titled El Movimiento: Selections from the Tomás Ybarra -Frausto Research Material on Chicano Art. These web pages highlight documents from this display.

For a complete description of the collections, see the Tomás Ybarra-Frausto Research Material on Chicano Art at the Archives of American Art.

Tomás Ybarra-Frausto (right) with Antonio Diaz, director of the San Antonio Cultural Affairs Department and Chicana artist Amalia-Mesa Bains, undated.Tomás Ybarra-Frausto Research Material on Chicano Art; Amalia Mesa-Bains file; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Photograph of Tomás Ybarra-Frausto with Antonio Diaz, director of the San Antonio Cultural Affairs Department and Chicana artist Amalia Mesa-Bains.

About the Collection

In 1997, the Archives of American Art received a donation of 20 linear feet of research material on the Chicano art movement in the United States and Latin America, compiled by Dr. Tomás Ybarra-Frausto. Ybarra-Frausto was a professor at Stanford University in the department of Spanish and Portuguese and has published extensively on Latin American and U.S. Latino culture. He served as chair of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, and is currently chair of the Smithsonian Council, Washington, DC and associate director for Arts and Humanities at the Rockefeller Foundation.

Ybarra-Frausto's extensive files, dating from 1965-1996, are on artists, artists' collectives, organizations, exhibitions, periodicals, and a variety of subjects, all inter-filed in an alphabetical arrangement. The bulk of the files contain mostly printed material, though notes, draft writings, photographs, and scattered correspondence are also found.

A large portion of the material relates to the publication Arte Chicano: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Chicano Art, 1965-1981 (1985), which Ybarra-Frausto compiled with Shifra M. Goldman. The collection forms a significant addition to the Archives growing body of materials on Latino and Latin American Artists. To learn more, see the Archives' special focus guide: Archivos Virtuales: the Papers of Latin American and Latino art and artists.

Notable Highlights from the Collection

Topical files:

Files on museums and institutions:

Information on exhibitions such as:

Information on artists' collectives such as:

Information on individuals such as:

Files containing publications, such as the magazines: