Arlan Huang and Lillian Ling Huang Papers

Painter and glass sculptor Arlan Huang (1948–) was born in Bangor, Maine, raised in San Francisco, and currently resides in New York City with his partner, Lillian Ling Huang. He was involved with Basement Workshop where he was the co-coordinator of Yellow Pearl, a collection of art, music, and writing by young Asian Americans. Huang was also one of the founding members of Godzilla Asian American Art Network. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Trestle Gallery, Walter Randel Gallery, Bowery Poetry Club, EXIT Art, Art in General, and Flatfile/Slash (Japan). In 2014, Huang received the Joan Mitchell Creating a Living Legacy Award.

In the early 1970s, Lillian Ling Huang (1948–) became involved with the Asian American movement and Basement Workshop. Ling Huang was a tutor and youth counselor at the Chinese-American Planning Council Project Reach, a volunteer at the Chinatown Health Fair and Chinatown Street Fair, a founding member of the United Asian Communities Center, and the coordinator for the Committee for a New JHS 65 (IS 131) in Chinatown. Ling Huang was also the assistant director at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) where she worked for thirty-eight years.

Huang’s materials include sketches, photographs, and slides of his art projects; posters and flyers for community organization campaigns; and correspondence and photographs from Godzilla, Basement Workshop, and Yellow Pearl. Ling Huang’s materials include promotional pieces, clippings, and brochures related to Huang’s exhibitions; materials collected in the early 1970s of the Asian American movement including buttons, t-shirts, and correspondence; items from Ling Huang’s parents, who owned a laundry and worked as a garment worker and a waiter, respectively; and Ling Huang’s papers from AALDEF.

The Arlan Huang & Lillian Ling Huang Papers are in transfer to the NYU Fales Library & Special Collections. A finding aid for the collection is in process.

Image: Yellow Pearl, Basement Workshop, 1972; The Arlan Huang & Lillian Ling Huang Papers; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries. Photograph by Peter Wing.