Artists, 1903-2014

Jack Eyerly facilitated communications between hundreds of artists from the Northwest, in many cases helping to connect individuals with the resources that they needed to flourish creatively. As an outcome of this, Eyerly collected papers from these correspondences and compiled them together in his archive. There are several examples of Eyerly’s prolonged interaction with artists, each given their own distinct subseries to highlight their correspondence and relationships with Eyerly, as well as Eyerly’s own notes about his work. In the case of artists like Clifford Gleason or Brian Kazlov, Eyerly went so far as to continue promoting their work years after they had passed away, even organizing major retrospectives in their honor. The Chiaki Kawajiri subseries gives an in-depth example of Eyerly when he was working on a specific project, as he was a collaborator and promoter for Kawajiri’s piece Flesh of my Flesh, an avant-garde series of photos in which two dancers with disabilities were photographed in an intimate setting. With Isaac Shamsud-Din, Eyerly’s interest in Portland as a place where art becomes social change is displayed through his part in the Albina Mural Project, which revitalized a neighborhood through the process of creating art. Eyerly’s correspondence with Patricia Paolucci gives an insight into the life of an artist who originated from the Northwest but who then moved around to other parts of the United States, as well as bringing dance into the conversation regarding the arts.

It should be noted that the bulk of this series is contained in Subseries I: Individual Artists. While Subseries A-H contain a wealth of information about specific artists and projects, Subseries I allows for a much broader understanding of the arts as they evolved over time. Each box from this section references dozens of artists working on multiple projects, yet many of them come together in an overarching narrative about a place, style, theme or series of events that had an impact upon Eyerly as the collector. In this way, the collection of individual artists’ papers reflects not only the history of the Northwest art scene, but also the importance of certain artists or events to Eyerly as a supporter of the arts.