Excerpt from What It Took to Becmome Bernice Bing
Catalog essay for Bernice Bing: BINGO
By John Yau
“In my abstract imagery, I am attempting to create a new synthesis with a very old world.”
—Bernice Bing
The artist and activist Bernice Bing (1936-1998) was born in Chinatown, San Francisco. She lived and worked in the storied Macayamas Vineyard in the Napa Valley (1963-1966), and died in Philo, California, less than 125 miles from her birthplace. Despite living almost her entire life in a small area that included San Francisco and the surrounding countryside, and showing her art irregularly, mostly in non-commercial venues, her reputation as an artist has grown steadily since her death. In 2020, Bing’s cause was greatly aided when Stanford University acquired her archive, which included journals, sketchbooks, artworks, correspondences, and other materials, and made its contents available to curators, art historians, and critics.
Historically speaking, Bing was part of the Bay Area art scene in its formative years. But what she went on and did, much of it in isolation, is the real story. In 1955, because of receiving a National Scholastic Award Scholarship, Bing was able to attend the California College of the Arts and Crafts, where she briefly studied advertising before switching to painting. Later, Bing transferred to the California School of Fine Arts (San Francisco Art Institute), where she studied with Saburō Hasegawa and Richard Diebenkorn, two foundational influences, and began defining the trajectory she should pursue the rest of her life.
Essay by John Yau
Introduction by Lenore Chinn and Flo Oy Wong
Designed by Mark Robinson
Photography by Roz Akin
Published by Berry Campbell and printed by GHP Media, West Haven, CT.
