California/International Arts Foundation
$298,000

Beginning in 2002, the California/International Arts Foundation conducted preliminary surveys of historic records at 22 local museums, universities, and libraries, as well as those of key dealers, critics, and other individuals, in order to establish the significance of the records and the work that would be needed to catalogue them. Based on the findings, the Getty Foundation then provided grants to the following institutions to catalogue their archives and eventually make them publicly accessible.

Many of the collections and their finding aids (inventories of collection content) can also be found on the Online Archive of California, a digital gateway to collections held in libraries, museums, and archives statewide.

Art Center College of Design
$200,000

Founded in 1930 by advertising artist Edward A. "Tink" Adams, Art Center was the first school to teach real-world skills to artists and designers and prepare them for careers in advertising, publishing, and industrial design. Art Center's faculty and alumni have since led the fields of automotive and product design, advertising, illustration, graphic design, photography, fine arts, and film. The Center's extensive archival holdings include photographs, publications, correspondence, videos, architectural plans, drawings, and student work, documenting the history of the institution and of design education more broadly, as well as the school's central role in the Southern California art world. Visit the Art Center's archives.

California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
$214,000

Established in 1961 by Walt and Roy Disney through the merger of two professional schools—the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music (est. 1883) and the Chouinard Art Institute (est. 1921), CalArts became the first U.S. higher educational institution to offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in both visual and performing arts. Incorporating the records of its two predecessor institutions, the CalArts archives encompass two hundred years of cultural history in the arts and arts education in Southern California. The holdings are key to the study of Modernism on the West Coast, and also include important later records such as those of the school's seminal Feminist Art and Women's Design programs. Records include student, faculty and institutional publications, and the institutional photographic collection documenting CalArts events and exhibitions. Visit the CalArts archives.

California State University, Long Beach (CSULB)
University Art Museum
$20,000

Founded in 1973, the University Art Museum has been a key outpost for artistic developments in Southern California for 30 years, showcasing lesser-known artists and new bodies of work by more established figures, including Ken Price, Laddie John Dill, and Peter Alexander. The Museum also oversees the CSULB Monumental Sculpture Collection, which includes major works by such artists as Robert Irwin and Woods Davy situated throughout the 320-acre campus. Documenting these unique exhibitions and commissions was always a high priority, and the Museum's exhibition and artists files have great potential value to scholars. Records include artist and curatorial files with correspondence, checklists, and bibliographies; museum scrapbooks with press, invitations, and installation documentation; and video documentation of lectures and symposia. Visit the University Art Museum.

Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
$190,000

The Library's Department of Special Collections includes several archival collections related to the history of West Coast art, including the papers of renowned émigré architect Richard Neutra, one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century; prominent Los Angeles critic and curator Jules Langsner, an early promoter of West Coast art and artists; artists Gordon Wagner and June Wayne; and the institutional archives of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, spanning 35 years and including the records of the Wight Gallery, an important early Los Angeles exhibition venue. The collections represent a century of design, innovation and creative energy in Southern California, and the materials are a key resource for scholars of the era. Search the Library's Special Collections.

Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA
$318,800

Building on its strong community contacts, the Chicano Studies Research Center has been working with public and private art groups and collectives, community-based arts organizations, alternative arts publications, and individual artists to organize the historic records of these groups and preserve them in appropriate archival settings. Known as the Latino Arts Survey, the project is safeguarding the rich and diverse histories of the Chicano and Latino arts communities, promoting research, and helping to integrate Latino arts into mainstream art historical scholarship. The Center is also conducting oral histories with key individuals as an important supplement to the archival record, providing researchers with valuable insights into the social and cultural context of art production. Visit the Chicano Studies Research Center online.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
$422,000

Founded in 1910 as the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, LACMA is the oldest and largest art museum in Los Angeles and has played a fundamental role in the development of 20th century art on the West Coast. The department of Modern and Contemporary Art maintains a special commitment to Southern California art since 1940, reflecting the emergence of Los Angeles as an international center of postwar art production. Covering artists as well as architects, fashion and film designers, the archival materials include curatorial files, correspondence, artist files, publications, photographs, building campaigns and events, and audio-visual material. Among the varied materials are a 1967 interview with Man Ray, a video of David Hockney driving a customized car through the museum grounds, and key curatorial files such as those from the highly influential 1971 Art and Technology exhibition. Visit LACMA's post-war art collection.

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
$280,000

Over the past 25 years, MOCA has become an internationally recognized contemporary art institution and home to an important collection of American and European art created since 1940. Comprising some 5,000 objects in all visual media, the permanent collection ranges from masterpieces of abstract expressionism and pop art, including Jasper John's Map (1962), to recent works by emerging artists. MOCA's landmark single-artist and thematic group exhibitions based on original research, as well as its commissioning of new works, has resulted in rich and unique exhibition files. Covering each show since 1983, the files contain a wealth of detailed original correspondence and installation instructions from artists, installation photos, and other documentation of great potential value to scholars. Visit the MOCA library.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)
$222,000

As the first West Coast museum devoted to contemporary art, SFMoMA has played a key role in introducing modern art to American audiences, and has become internationally recognized for both its collection and its ambitious exhibition and educational programming. Under the direction of Grace McCann Morley, the Museum championed California art and architecture, and was one of the first to collect photography and film as fine art mediums. The Museum has amassed rich archival holdings documenting the founding and early history of the museum, correspondence between Morley and leading patrons and artists, and their long history of exhibitions. Visit the SFMoMA archives.

Scripps College
$90,000

Art exhibitions at Scripps began in the 1930s when art department head Millard Sheets started the highly influential Ceramic Annual, which has become the longest running exhibition of contemporary ceramics in the United States. The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery's archives and related materials in the College's Ella Strong Dennison Library document Scripps's important role the history of art in Southern California. Among the archival materials are collection, exhibition and artist files; donor records; campus documentation; the art and art history faculty files; records of the College Press; and a collection of artists' books. Visit the Williamson Gallery.

Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art
$240,000

Since 1954, the mission of the Archives of American Art has been to promote scholarship in the history of art in America through collecting, preserving, and making available for study the documentation of the country's rich artistic legacy. The Archives house important materials related to Los Angeles, and nine key collections were prioritized for cataloguing as part of Pacific Standard Time: the papers of artists Billy Al Bengston, Claire Falkenstein, Lorser Feitelson/Helen Lundeberg, Erle Loran, and Hassell Smith; the records of Frank Perls, who ran one of the most important galleries in the city, and Nicholas Wilder, whose La Cienega gallery showed such key artists as Larry Bell, Sam Francis, and Bruce Nauman; and the records of the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, an organization that played a key role in the citys art scene and in the public promotion of Southern California contemporary art. Lastly, the Archives hold the records of the Woman's Building, founded in 1973 by CalArts faculty members Judy Chicago, Arlene Raven and Shelia de Bretteville. From 1975–1991, the Woman's Building housed studios and hosted a variety of programs related to the feminist movement and performance art as part of the Feminist Studio Workshop. Search the Archives' collections.

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
University Art Museum
$250,000

Established in 1963 by the architectural historian and UCSB professor David Gebhard, the Museum's Architectural and Design Collection houses the archival collections of over 350 architects and designers active from 1890 to the present. The Collection's particular strength is its regional focus on the West and on the work of seminal Southern California architects. Prioritized for cataloguing under Pacific Standard Time are the papers of Myron Hunt, George Washington Smith, Rudolph M. Schindler, Albert Frey, and Gregory Ain, as well as those of lesser-known yet influential figures such as Thorton Abell, Julius R. Davidson, Edward Killingsworth, Paul Lászlň, and Cliff May. Also being processed are Gebhard's personal papers, which provide insight into the career of this dedicated historian, educator, curator, and preservationist who had played such a significant role in the promotion of California architecture internationally. Visit the Architectural and Design Collection.