Teri, Corky Lee and his photographic record of Asian America

I had a long phone conversation today with Teri’s close friend Becky from NJ who had been a fellow activist in NYC over 50 years ago. She unfortunately lost her husband to cancer two years ago.

Always up to date on all things Asian American, Becky told me that a new PBS documentary was showing now during Asian American Heritage Month entitled Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story. It is a moving account of Corky’s 50-year ‘hobby’ documenting Asian American history and injustices (housing, anti-Asian racism) in NYC. He was omnipresent – a word that rings completely apt – at all important Asian American events whether they be cultural, social or political in nature, whether Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean … documenting, documenting, documenting.

Corky’s most iconic image is a 2014 re-creation of the meeting of East and West railroads at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. Somehow, not a single Chinese laborer (some 12,000) appeared in the historic celebratory photograph of the transcontinental linking. Nearly 150 years later, to restore the proper historical perspective, he gathered Chinese-American descendants of those railroad builders and photographed them at the same point – an image indelibly stored at the Smithsonian. But that was only one of his 800,000 images, mostly of Asian Americans.

A self-taught photographer, Corky was called the ‘Asian American photographer laureate’ and his work was recently recognized with a series of shows of his community-based, justice-focused photographic record. Still active to the last, he probably contracted COVID during another documentary effort of a protest of anti-Asian hate crimes while masked, and succumbed in January 2021. Corky’s obituary appeared in the New Yorker Magazine. This documentary chronicles his Chinatown roots, his tireless and humble approach to photography, and his courageous and principled soul.

Teri was a good friend of Corky’s as they both went to Queens College and Corky founded the Asian American students’ club there. After Corky graduated, he asked Lois, Teri’s close college classmate, to take over the lead. The three often attended the same demonstrations in Chinatown. After Teri and I met in 1971, we spent time together in NYC at Asian American gatherings and she introduced me to Corky, when he was already beginning his photographic journey.

In the documentary, in the still image at 9:32, Becky appears in the middle with her glasses. I was stunned to see Teri in the still image at 9:42 in the left lower corner, at a demonstration in 1971.

Teri's small part in Corky’s indelible historical record!

I just learned that that picture appeared in the May 19th NY Times Sunday Book Review .

Unexpectedly traipsing in my father’s footsteps

Completely consumed by his research and maximizing ‘field work’, our ‘father-son’ outings consisted of innumerable museums in contrast to my peers who shared paternal fishing, camping, boy scouts, and playing ball. At age of 10, I rebelled and refused to set foot in the Boston Fine Arts Museum one more time (every Sunday) … they allowed me to stand across the street alone to watch my preferred football. Early on, with such overexposure, I became inoculated against museums. Perhaps an unsurprising oppositional start for an art historian’s son.

As the vaccination wore thin, I took one course in Chinese art history taught by my father’s former student Yoshi Shimizu, and fleetingly considered such a path. On our travels, Teri and I enjoyed visiting the Chicago Art Institute, the Met, the Freer, MoMA, Asian Art Museum, East Wing, Tate Modern, the Palace Museum … as tourists. Whenever we returned to my parents’ home, I would see a new painting, inquire and engage my father about the artist. Chinese art and artists were one constant he would freely share with me. I began to appreciate the gestalt of knowing artists, their background, their techniques, their development behind that painting.

I distinctly remember one day when Teri thanked my father profusely for bringing such beauty into our lives! This thoughtful gesture made me realize that I had taken the encircling artwork for granted. As my father devolved into dementia, I became the steward, donating paintings to museums (as he directed), properly storing the remaining collection, and sorting and donating his papers to Taiwan National University (as he wished). This labor gradually progressed from necessity to deep respect and even love. I asked him to teach me, alas his mind had slipped too far, despite momentary accurate recollections. In the end, my father’s prescient appreciation of abstract ink and relentless efforts to promote the artists forged a legacy that ineffably binds us. Never too late.

My friend Don, an artist, 6 or 7 years ago, told me prophetically that I would become involved with art. I just laughed at the thought. I wish my father and Don could witness this unexpected passion and its ensuing paths. Where have they led?

I have become a regular at Asia Week in NYC visiting galleries and museums in search of contemporary ink art, even adding to my father’s collection. This interest segued into aquaintances, even friendships, with Chinese art historians and curators (including my father’s now retiring former students), art dealers, collectors, and, most importantly, artists. To be invited into their studios has enabled my deeper appreciation of their artistic evolution of which one painting represents but a single timepoint. Together with Margaret Chang (Hung Hsien), my art godmother, we visited the Freer Gallery (Smithsonian) storage to view the Bada Shanren collection of Chan (original Chinese zen) paintings and Chao Mengfu’s ‘Sheep and Goat’ on which my father wrote a monograph. What a reprise to view a late Yuan (1200’s) painting from inches, just as he once did. Recognizing Margaret Chang’s neglected legacy as the only woman in the avant garde 5th Moon group (Taiwan 1960s and 1970s), I began to take an oral history from her 2-3 hours a week during COVID. This led to my first invited art talk to the UW-Milwaukee art history department on Margaret’s artistic career. This in turn fueled my efforts towards initiating a belated solo, retrospective show of her life’s work. With the help of three curators, this is taking place in April 2025!

And when you come to visit my new townhouse in Colorado, you will see a gallery (also Tai Chi studio) paying homage to my father's impact on contemporary Chinese ink paintings.

This art full-circle has connected me to my father, my Chinese culture, my Asian-American identity, and to a budding aesthetic self replete with immense learning, mindful enjoyment and profound meaning.

Who woulda thoughta?