Introduction & PTDW BIPOC History
Welcome to PTDW’s Fight Against Inequity and Racism (FAIR) Library Guide! This guide is meant to provide students with the opportunity to explore the field of Painting and Drawing from a perspective that they might not otherwise cover in their courses and to provide resources for faculty who seek to widen the breadth of their syllabi. Using the navigation bar on the left, you may browse a curated collection of resources specific to the field of Painting and Drawing. This guide is an evolving collection of images, books, articles, audio/visual materials, and other learning and teaching tools collaboratively created by the students and faculty members of SAIC’s PTDW department with the help of our Flaxman librarians. If you are a PTDW student or faculty member, you are invited to participate in the ongoing creation and maintenance of this guide.
Throughout the long and storied history of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago—and particularly the Painting and Drawing Department—the essence of what we do as makers and the traditions we pass across generations have been developed by a diverse population of contributors. Far from a monolithically white history, our department has been indelibly shaped by BIPOC faculty and students since its inception. Take, for example, artists such as Archibald Motley, Jr., and Margaret Taylor Burroughs who worked within the earliest conceptions of our department in order to develop into the artistic masters as they came to be known and celebrated in modern art history. Or consider the impact of painting maven Ray Yoshida’s forty-six years on faculty in PTDW, during which time he pioneered new modes of approaches abstraction, painting, and picture while mentoring many of the artists who would come to be internationally recognized as the Chicago Imagists.
Within our institution, there are many ongoing efforts at recovering, preserving, and sharing the richness of our collective histories. This recently developed interactive timeline is but one example.
At most recent count, our student body comprises 28% students of color and 33% international students. We promote a continually intersectional dialogue about painting and drawing’s impact on the lives of a diverse cross-section of artists. Among the many other tools and resources we are gathering into this database, we are excited to hold space for more history building and more of us taking the responsibility to carry these stories forward. Look out for forthcoming submission tools and programs in which we do this historical work together in ways that add meaning and significance to our present day efforts at anti-racism, inclusivity, and an equitable art world.