Reuben Tam
Reuben Tam (January 17, 1916 – January 3, 1991) was a Chinese American landscape painter, educator, poet and graphic artist.
Reuben Tam
- Name
- Reuben Tam
- Born
- 17 January 1916
- Birthplace
- Kapaʻa, Kauai, Territory of Hawaiʻi
- Died
- 3 January 1991
- Place of death
- Kauai, Hawaiʻi, U.S.
- Education
- California School of Fine Art (BFA)
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- painter
- Honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Reuben Tam • Honorific Suffix — ANA, NA • Born — 17 January 1916 • Birthplace — Kapaʻa, Kauai, Territory of Hawaiʻi • Died — 3 January 1991 • Place of death — Kauai, Hawaiʻi, U.S. • Education — California School of Fine Art (BFA) • Alma Mater — University of Hawaiʻi Columbia University • Illustration — From Cliffs to Evening by Reuben Tam, oil on canvas, 1978, Honolulu Museum of Art
Early life and education
Early life and education
He was born in Kapaʻa on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. He earned a BA degree from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1937. He attended classes in 1940 at the California School of Fine Art (later the San Francisco Art Institute). In 1941 he moved to New York City and he continued his studies from 1942 until 1945 at Columbia University with Meyer Schapiro.
Career
Career
Tam became affiliated with the Downtown Gallery in 1945. Tam is best known for his referential abstract landscape paintings showing both land and sea, such as From Cliffs to Evening. In his later career he worked more in pure abstraction. From 1946 to the 1974, he taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School (BMAS). Some of his notable students from BMAS included Frances Kornbluth, Mel Tanner, Jean Arcoleo, Pat Adams, and Richard Mayhew. He spent many summers painting on Monhegan Island in Maine, starting around 1950. He later taught courses at Queens College (City College of New York) and Oregon State University.
Death and legacy
Tam returned to Kauai in 1980, and died there on January 3, 1991, of lymphoma. The Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Massachusetts), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (Brooklyn, New York), the Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, Ohio), the Corcoran Gallery (Washington D.C.), Des Moines Art Center (Des Moines, Iowa), Farnsworth Art Museum (Rockland, Maine), Fisher Gallery (University of Southern California, Los Angeles), the Hawaii State Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery (University of Washington, Seattle), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Lowe Art Museum (University of Miami), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (Washington University in St. Louis), the National Academy of Design (New York City), the Newark Museum (Newark, New Jersey), Reading Public Museum (Reading, Pennsylvania), the San Diego Museum of Art (San Diego, California), Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (Lincoln, Nebraska), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), the University of Michigan Museum of Art (Ann Arbor, Michigan), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City), and the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) are among the public collections holding works by Reuben Tam.
Awards and honors
• 1940 – First National Prize for his painting Koko Crater at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) • 1948 – Guggenheim Fellowship • 1975 – Associate National Academician (ANA), National Academy of Design • 1978 – American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Award in Art • 1987 – National Academicians (NA), National Academy of Design • 1989 – Elliot Cades Literary Award for his poetry, from University of Hawaiʻi
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Reuben Tam, revision 1368620924 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Shahi, Kimia. Pacific New England: Reuben Tam's Archipelagic Landscapes. The New England Quarterly. 97. 4. 448–481. 2024-12-01. 0028-4866.
- 2.Biographical Note, A Finding Aid to the Reuben Tam papers, 1931-2006. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
- 3.Reuben Tam Papers An inventory of his papers at Syracuse University. Syracuse University.
- 4.Price, Marshall N. The Abstract Impulse: Fifty Years of Abstraction at the National Academy, 1956-2006. Hudson Hills. 75. 2007. 978-1-887149-17-4.
- 5.Schneider, Julie. At 96 Years Old, Richard Mayhew Is Still Painting Transportive "Mindscapes". Hyperallergic. 2020-09-21.
- 6.Heller, Jules. North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. 2013-12-19. 978-1-135-63889-4.
- 7.Forbes, David W. (1992). Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941. Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts, pages 265–6.
- 8.Reuben Tam - Artist, Fine Art Prices, Auction Records for Reuben Tam. www.askart.com.
- 9.Papanikolas, Theresa and Stephen Salel, Stephen, Abstract Expressionism, Looking East from the Far West, Honolulu Museum of Art, 2017, , page 30
- 10.Artist Info.
- 11.Chang, Gordon H., Mark Dean Johnson, Paul J. Karlstrom & Sharon Spain, Asian American Art, a History, 1850-1970, Stanford University Press, , page 429
- 12.John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Reuben Tam.
- 13.McCarthy, Jeremiah William. For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design. Yale University Press. 293. 2019-01-01. 978-0-300-24428-1.
- 14.Saville, Jennifer. Archipelago: Paintings by Reuben Tam. Calendar News. 5–6. July–August 1991.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 10
- Chang, Gordon H., Mark Dean Johnson, Paul J. Karlstrom & Sharon Spain, Asian American Art, a History, 1850-1970, Stanford University Press, , pages 429–430
- Hawaii State Department of Education. Artists of Hawaii. 47–54. 1985. 13099980.
- Forbes, David W. Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941. Honolulu Academy of Arts : University of Hawaiʻi Press. 215–266. 1992. 9780824814465.
- Haar, Francis. Artists of Hawaii. University of Hawaiʻi Press. 2. 85–90. 1977. 9780824804671.
- Hartwell, Patricia L. (editor), Retrospective 1967-1987, Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987, page 57
- Johnston, Healoha, "Islanding: Reuben Tam", Honolulu Museum of Art, June • July • Aug 2018, page 5
- Tam, Reuben. Archipelago, Life Cycle of the Hawaiian Islands, A Portfolio of Paintings. Honolulu Academy of Arts. 1998. 9780937426401.
- Tam, Reuben. Sketches. Bamboo Ridge: Journal of Hawaiʻi Literature and Arts. Winter. 32–138. 1993. 0733-0308.
- Tam, Reuben. The Wind-honed Islands Rise, Selected Poems of Reuben Tam. Manoa Books. 1996. 9780824819323.
- Yoshihara, Lisa A. Collective Visions, 1967-1997. Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. 73. 1997. 37890571.
References
Citations
References
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