As Asian American and Pacific Islander History Month winds down, it’s important to note how many AAPI artists, architects, collectors, and activists have changed the course of art history in the United States and around the world. Here are 25 Asian American and Pacific Islander artists who have made key contributions to modern and contemporary art in a variety of mediums, styles, and movements.
Please note that we’ve included some non-US citizens who nevertheless spent significant time in the United States. They are marked with an asterisk*.
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17. Pacita Abad (1946-2004)
Born in 1946 in Batanes, the Philippines, to politically involved parents, Pacita Abad originally planned on a law career, studying political science and Asian history in Manila and San Francisco. A short marriage to artist George Kleiman introduced her to the art world, and during a yearlong trip across 12 Asian countries she shifted her career plans from law to painting.
Abad’s work was influenced by the creative techniques she encountered in the many countries she visited, including Korean ink-brush painting, Indonesian batik prints, African tie-dye, and Indian mirror work. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Abad incorporated a quilting method called trapunto into her art, layering, stuffing, stitching, and collaging objects—such as buttons, shells, mirrors, and painted textiles—on top of her vibrant, large-scale painted canvasses. Her work has been in solo and group exhibitions at museums around the world, as well as collected by the Tate Modern, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Smithsonian American Arts Museum, and the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
—Hannah Edgar, Karen K. Ho
