Mission: An integral part of the University of Southern California, the USC Pacific Asia Museum creates inspiring encounters with the art, history, and culture of Pacific Asia to promote intercultural understanding in the service of elevating our shared sense of humanity.;xNLx;
The Pacificulture Foundation moved into the building in 1971. In 1987 the Foundation bought the structure once known as “The Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art,” and subsequently became Pacific Asia Museum. In November 2013, the museum partnered with University of Southern California to become USC Pacific Asia Museum.
My family moved from Palos Verdes to Pasadena during the war. In 1943, due to the war effort, my father, an organic chemist, had to find land near Los Angeles with a railroad tie where he could build a chemical company to produce his lubricant inventions. Palos Verdes was too isolated for such an industrial endeavor. However, the family history in Palos Verdes involved a deep commitment to the arts. My homesick mother missed the community of this Olmsted-designed village spreading along the coastline. With close family friends of Japanese and Chinese descent, she discovered the Pasadena Art Institute, which offered art classes for children. However, these classes were terminated during the war due to the lack of students and teachers. Years later, the museum established a Culinary Arts council that had events in the room next to the Blue Room. At round tables of 8, we were served the most delicious food! The council members cooked it in the kitchen and served it at the tables. It was very hard to get a reservation or to find a space. Later, parties on the patio were constant. The Festival of the Autumn Moon was an elegant and very joyous affair. Several of us, including Marilyn Brumder and Nancy Wheat, added to the guest list and hand addressed all the envelopes. Refreshments for gatherings were almost always served upstairs in the Blue Room back then—now they are served on the patio. David Kamansky had innovative ideas to bring in the public, including an annual art appraisal day when one could bring objects to be identified and appraised. Many of these objects ended up in the annual Festival of the Autumn Moon sales. These were exciting events and attracted a large crowd. Originally, the event was held in the museum courtyard, but due to the ever-increasing crowd it was moved to the parking lot. After several years of coping with the hot surface and less-than-ideal space, I managed to persuade David that we should put the event in the hotel across the street. One year the auction was carefully staged in the Convention Center, but the amount of work and expense sent it back to the hotel. The event was also held at the California Club for a couple of years, and until the pandemic, at the Langham Hotel. There were no professional party planners until the arrival of USC ownership. Tai-ling Wong managed the museum store forever. She had extraordinary resources for antiques, jewelry and clothes. The store was nominated the best resourced and performing museum gift store in Los Angeles. When the garden needed a restoration, Jim Folsom from the Huntington came in to design the pruning of the ginko tree. The landscape architect Thomas Batcheller Cox designed the placement of a huge clump of donated bamboo. The problem was that it had been dug up in somebody’s vacant lot and was riddled with spores and invasive plants. The Lasarte Brothers carefully transplanted it into concrete, in-ground boxes to keep the new growth from creeping into the patio itself. They are still there today. There was wisteria that had been trained up the staircase railings. The distinguished architect, Bob Ray Offenhauser insisted that the ole, woody, non-blooming vine be removed to another location reminding everyone that you never cover important designs and carvings with creeping vines when dealing with a notable structure.
At least 40 years ago, I was a volunteer in search of ‘a place.’ I was intrigued by the learning possibilities and most of all, photographic opportunities. That day, I found myself to be a ‘signed up’ volunteer, commtiting myself to 2 years of study and at least 1 year of ’docenting.’
The first comprehensive exhibit of the prints of Paul Jacoulet opened at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena on April 22, 1982 and was on view until January 9, 1983. Jacoulet, a Frenchman by birth, lived and worked for most of his life in Japan in the first half of this century. His woodblock prints were created by the traditional Japanese collaboration of artist, carver, and printer, yet the images were anything but traditional. In the words of Richard Miles, Guest Curator of the exhibit, Jacoulet’s portraits of Japanese. Manchurian, Korean, and particularly South Seas subjects were blatantly frontal and brilliantly sensuous, unafraid of the naked emotion and the grand if not grandiloquent pose.
Thank you, Pacific Asia Museum, for [having me] join you in 1985. There, as a young ceramic artist, I met Sunghul Kim, another clay artist. And in 2001, we travelled to Incheon, Korea, as guests, to demonstrate our art in the ceramic museum there. I met my first pottery teacher, Kimpei Nakamura from Tokyo/Kanazawa, 3 days after 9/11.
The opening, or reopening, of China to the West in the 1970’s was one of the momentous political developments of the twentieth century. By the early 1980’s it had led to a broad new national program of modernization which, under good leadership, has already brought important benefits to the economy and the society in general. There is no clearer prism through which to perceive these developments than in the art now being created by the new generation of Chinese artists. The exhibit opened on April 15th, 1987 and ran until August 9th, 1987.
Several years ago I became interested in Tibetan rugs. I read up as much as I could about them. It wasn't until the 1992 PAM exhibit that I was able to see some of these extraordinary rugs in person.
"A Gathering Place: Artmaking by Asian/Pacific Women in Traditional and Contemporary Directions," was an art exhibition that presented a complex, progressive political vision with immense implications for the visual arts in the final years of the 20th century. The exhibition brought together two generations of women of Asian/Pacific descent. Included were artists from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Samoa, and Hawaii. Their ages ranged from their late 20s through their 80s and their works included traditional crafts to postmodern installations. Together, their efforts served as a powerful alternative to the historical presence of white male ‘superstars' who have dominated the art world and its institutions throughout American history. In "A Gathering Place," one encountered quilts, mat weavings, embroideries, and dolls along with paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations, all presented equally with no suggestion of any distinction between arts and crafts. The exhibit opened on February 18th 1995 and ran until August 27th, 1995.
I remember when the Dalai Lama came and they did a sand Buddhist painting. It was extraordinary to see how focused the monks were and how precisely they created the picture. This happened in the late 1980s. There were a lot of people and I came with my two young kids.
The Pacific Asia museum celebrated the centennial of Philippine independence with a special exhibition titled “The Creative Voices of Reason:Philippine Painters, Poets, and Craftsmen.” The exhibit opened on March 18th 1998 and ran until July 15th, 1998. The show surveyed the Manila/Acapulco Galleon Trade and traced one aspect of the important role East to West Trade has played in the cultural and political history of the world.
