Development of Asian American Art in California

Development of Asian American Art in California

Introduction

Asian arts and crafts have long been the object of California's collecting fads; they have inspired art and design movements, and have informed the work of California's artists and architects. By the end of the nineteenth century, California's audiences had grown accustomed to regarding Asian culture with wonder, and in terms of an exotic, mysterious, and undifferentiated “Orient”. Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Filipino people were routinely displayed and presented in museums, circuses, theater stages, and world fairs. The designation “Asian American” is formulated by geographic determinants that circumscribe a ...