Tomás Ybarra-Frausto research material on Chicano art
name: label: Creator
content: Ybarra-Frausto, Tomás, 1938-
label: Names
content: Mexican Museum
label: Names
content: Royal Chicano Air Force
label: Names
content: Studio 24 (San Francisco, Calif.)
label: Names
content: Garza, Carmen Lomas
label: Names
content: Goldman, Shifra M., 1926-2011
label: Names
content: Mesa-Bains, Amalia
place: label: Place
content: Mexico -- Religious life and customs
topic: label: Topic
content: Santos (Art)
label: Topic
content: Household shrines -- Mexico
label: Topic
content: Chicano art
label: Topic
content: Chicano artists
label: Topic
content: Mexican American art
label: Topic
content: Mexican American artists
label: Topic
content: Latino and Latin American artists
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto in 1997, and in 2004.
creator: label: Creator
content: Ybarra-Frausto, Tomás, 1938-
setName: label: See more items in
content: Tomás Ybarra-Frausto research material on Chicano art
abstract: label: Summary
content: The research material of Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, measures 33.1 linear feet and 1.27 GB and dates from 1965-2004. The collection, amassed throughout Ybarra-Frausto's long and distinguished career as a scholar of the arts and humanities, documents the development of Chicano art in the United States and chronicles Ybarra-Frausto's role as a community leader and scholar in the political and artistic Chicano movement from its inception in the 1960s to the present day.
bioghist: label: Autobiographical Note
content: Papelitos (little bits of paper), whether rent receipts, paid bills, or piles of personal letters, can become layered bundles of personal history. I have always been a pepenador (a scavenger) and saver of paper scraps. Diary notes, scribbled annotations, and first drafts are often useful indicators of ideas and gestation. Papelitos are the fragments of every-day life that gain expanded meaning integrated into the larger historical events of a period.

In the decade of the 1960s, I started saving ephemeral material--exhibition announcements, clippings of individual artists and of organizations fomenting a Chicano art movement. The social scenarios of the period such as marches, strikes, sit-ins, and mobilizations for social justice all spawned manifestos, posters, leaflets, and other forms of printed material. I somehow managed to assemble and protect the evanescent printed information that recorded the birth and development of Chicano art.

As I started to research and write about Chicano art and artists of the period, I continued to clip, photocopy, and preserve material given me by Mexican-American artists from throughout the nation. My idea was to form an archive that would be comprehensive rather than selective. I knew that it was the offbeat, singular piece of paper with a missing link of information that would attract the scholar.

Today, several decades after the flowering of Chicano art, there is still a lamentable paucity of research and information about this significant component of American art.

It is my fervent hope that this compendium of information will function as a resonant print and image bank for investigators of Chicano culture. Perhaps contained within the archive are the facts that will inspire new visions or revisions of Chicano art and culture--this is my fondest dream.

Dr. Tomás Ybarra-Frausto

New York City, 1998
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 33.1 Linear Feet
label: Extent
content: 1.27 Gigabytes
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1965-2004
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.ybartoma
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Gigabytes
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Slides (photographs)
label: Type
content: Interviews
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged as a single series of subject files. The general contents of each folder have been listed. The subject files are arranged in alphabetical order. While no two files are alike, they may contain résumés, printed and digital material, letters, draft writings, and photographs. Unless otherwise noted, each listing represents one file folder. The abbreviation TYF was used to refer to the name Tomá Ybarra-Frausto throughtout the Series Description.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The collection was processed by Gabriela H. Lambert and Rosa Fernández in 1997-1998.

New material was donated in 2004 and was integrated into the collection and added to the finding aid by Lucile Smith in 2005-2006.

Oversized materials were moved to oversized boxes and folders in order to better preserve them. Notations were made after the folder listing in each of these instances.

Born-digital materials were processed by Kirsi Ritosalmi-Kisner in 2019 with funding provided by Smithsonian Collection Care and Preservation Fund.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
label: Genre/Form
content: Slides (photographs)
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Content Note
content: The research material of Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, amassed throughout his long and distinguished career as a scholar of the arts and humanities, documents the development of Chicano art in the United States. As community leader and scholar, Ybarra-Frausto played dual roles of active participant and historian in the Chicano movement, chronicling this unique political and artistic movement from its inception in the 1960s to the present day.

Deeply rooted in American history, "El Movimiento," the Chicano movement, evolved from Mexican-Americans' struggle for self-determination during the civil rights era of the 1960s. It began as a grassroots community effort that enlisted the arts in the creation of a united political and cultural constituency. Chicano artists, intellectuals, and political activists were instrumental in mobilizing the Mexican-American community for the cause of social justice, and the movement was shaped by the affirmation of a cultural identity that embraced a shared heritage with Mexico and the United States.

Just as "El Movimiento" aimed to instruct and inspire through the recollection and conservation of culture, Ybarra-Frausto's own career as scholar and historian helped to shape the intellectual discourse of the Chicano art. As a leading historian and theoretician in the field of Chicano Studies, he has written extensively on the subject, and has been instrumental in defining the canons of Chicano art. His papers are accordingly rich and varied, and they will be of great use to future scholars.

His research material, dating from 1965 to 1996, are arranged in subject files containing original writings, notes, bibliographies compiled by Ybarra-Frausto and others, exhibition catalogues, announcements, newspaper clippings and other printed material, as well as slides and photographs. Many of these files also include interview transcripts and correspondence with prominent figures in the movement. While this research collection contextualizes Chicano art within the larger framework of Latino and Latin-American culture, the bulk of the files relates specifically to Chicano visual culture. The collection also contains pertinent documentation of the Chicano civil rights movement, material on Chicano poets and writers, and research files on the wider Hispanic community, but these also appear within the context of Chicano culture in general.

Prominent among the bibliographies are the many notes and drafts related to the publication of A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Chicano Art, 1965-1981 (University of California, Berkeley, 1985), which Ybarra-Frausto co-authored with Shifra Goldman. Ybarra-Frausto's files on Goldman, like other files in the collection, document his close associations and collaborations with scholars.

Art historians have traditionally found the categorization of Chicano art a difficult task. Unsure whether to classify the work as "American" or "Latin American," critics often ignored the work altogether. An outgrowth of this dilemma was the proliferation of artists, curators, and critics within the Chicano community, and the papers contain many original writings by Chicano artists about Chicano art, found in extensive files on artists that will be of particular significance to researchers. These often contain exhibition essays, dissertation proposals, and course outlines authored by the artists, along with the standard biographies, exhibition records, and reviews. Some of the files contain rare interviews conducted and transcribed by Ybarra-Frausto. Highlights include conversations with Carmen Lomas Garza, Amalia Mesa-Bains, and members of the Royal Chicano Air Force artist cooperative.

As a member of several Chicano art organizations and institutions, Ybarra-Frausto kept active records of their operation. The extensive files on the Mexican Museum and Galerie de la Raza/Studio 24, both in San Francisco, not only chronicle the history of Chicano art through the records of exhibitions and programming, but also offer case studies on the development of non-profit art institutions. The files on artist cooperatives, organizations, and exhibition spaces cover several regions of the United States, but focus on California, Texas and New York.

Two notable events in the development of Chicano art were the 1982 Califas: Chicano Art and Culture in California seminar at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the 1990 traveling exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985 (CARA), of which Ybarra-Frausto served as organizer and catalogue essayist. His records document the planning and development of these seminal events. Ybarra-Frausto's files on folk art, altars, posters, murals, performance art, border art, Chicana feminist art, and Southwestern and Mexican imagery (both urban and rural expressions) mirror the diverse forms and subject matter of Chicano art.

Spanning almost four decades of American culture from a Chicano perspective, these files have a unique historical value. The legacy of Chicano art and its contribution to the cultural landscape of this country, kept alive in Ybarra-Frausto's files, attests to the richness and diversity of American art.

Henry C. Estrada

Research Fellow, 1997.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Tomás Ybarra-Frausto Papers are located at University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.