Yun Gee Papers

Canton-born modernist painter Yun Gee (1906-1963) immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1921. Deciding to pursue a career as an artist, Gee enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute and became involved with a group of artists who established the Modern Gallery in 1926. That same year, he also founded the Chinese Revolutionary Artists’ Club, where he taught classes in advanced painting techniques and theory. In 1927, Gee moved to Paris where he exhibited alongside avant-garde Parisian painters in the Société des Artistes Indépendants’ annual Salon des Indépendants and other galleries. In 1930, he married poetess Princess Paule de Reuss, but the couple divorced two years later. He then returned to the US in the early 1930s and settled in New York City. Although he was included in exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, Gee’s predominant experience in the US art world was one characterized by alienation and discrimination.

Gee struggled through the Great Depression and supported himself by participating in numerous programs sponsored by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Gee continued to be involved with the Chinese community in New York by using his work to fundraise for causes in China, including painting a mural as a contribution to the Chinese Flood Relief Campaign. In 1942, he married Helen Wimmer, photography curator and proprietor of Greenwich Village’s influential gallery-café, Limelight, though they later divorced in 1947.

Despite facing anti-Chinese discrimination, Gee broke barriers by being the first Chinese artist to exhibit in many galleries in San Francisco, Paris, and New York. His papers contain personal correspondence from his spouses and scrapbooks of news clippings from the 1930s to the early 1940s. The news clippings mainly pertain to reviews of Gee’s exhibitions but also include news coverage surrounding his participation in relief efforts for flood victims in China, teaching of WPA classes, and involvement in local Chinatown New Year’s celebrations.

To learn more about the Yun Gee Papers, located at the NYU Fales Library & Special Collections, view the finding aid.

Image: Select magazine covers; Yun Gee Papers; MSS 144; Box: 3; Folder 5; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries.