Skip to main content

Phyllis Yes collection

 Collection
Identifier: OLPb197YES

Scope and Contents

This collection includes biographical and teaching materials, publications, newspaper clippings, and various ephemera related to the professional and academic work of artist Phyllis Yes. Biographical materials include the artist's C.V.s, professional, personal, and academic correspondence, a chapter from her unpublished autobiography, syllabi for several art courses Yes taught during her career at Lewis and Clark College, and newspaper clippings and articles mentioning Yes's work and accomplishments from publications including The Wall Street Journal, Glamour Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and Willamette Week. Also in the collection are bound publications featuring Yes's work including ArtWeek Magazine, ArtQuake Magazine, Visual Dialog, The New York Women's Foundation Commemorative Journal, Ornament Magazine, and the NW Gallery Art Magazine. Ephemera in the collection includes brochures and pamphlets from Yes's exhibitions in galleries such as the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in New York City, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, and the Freed Gallery in Lincoln City, Oregon. Media in the collection includes slides and photographs of Yes's work, as well as a VHS of a TV program special featuring Yes, titled, "Women Seen on Television."

Dates

  • Creation: 1976 - 2003

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Biographical / Historical

Phyllis Yes is an Oregon-based artist and playwright known for challenging gender roles by "feminizing" stereotypically masculine objects such as paint cans, hand guns, ladders, hammers, and cars. Among Yes's best known works are "Por She," a 1967 Porsche Yes painted over with lace rosettes and exhibited at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in New York City in 1984, "Paint Can with Brush," and her epaulette jewlery series.

Yes was born Phyllis Richardson in Red Wing, Minnesota, in 1941. She earned her B.A. in art from Luther College, her M.A. in art from the University of Minnesota, and her Ph.D. in art from the University of Oregon in 1978. Yes went on to teach art at the Federal University of Ceara, Brazil, Western Oregon University, Oregon State University, and Lewis and Clark College. At Lewis and Clark Yes served as Chair of the Art Department, Dean of Arts and Humanities, and became a professor emerita of art, painting, and drawing in 1998. Yes's work has appeared in over 130 exhibitions over the span of her career. She has exhibited her work in galleries including the Portland Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in New York City, the Nishiazabu Asa Cloth Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, and the Sandra Walters Gallery in Hong Kong, China. Yes has been honored with awards including an Oregon Arts Commission Grant in 1986, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1987, and a People's Choice Award, 2013 Legends of the Autobahn, in Monterey, California. Yes currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

Extent

4 boxes

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

Collection of materials related to the professional work, teaching, and life of Portland-based artist and former Lewis and Clark College art professor, Dr. Phyllis Yes.

Title
Guide to the Phyllis Yes collection
Author
Special Collections Staff
Date
2020
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Lewis & Clark College, Special Collections and Archives Repository

Contact:
615 S. Palatine Hill Rd.
Portland Oregon 97219 USA