art.wikisort.org - Researcher

Shifra Goldman (née Meyerowitz; July 18, 1926 – September 11, 2011) was an American art historian, feminist, and activist.[1] She had a probing intellect and a sense of "brutal" honesty.[2] She also had an "encyclopedic" knowledge of art history and a passion for Chicana/o art.[3]

Shifra Goldman
Born	Shifra Meyerowitz (1926-07-18)July 18, 1926 New York City
Died	July 11, 2011(2011-07-11) (aged 84) Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles; California State University, Los Angeles
Occupation	art historian
Spouse(s)	John Garcia

Life

Goldman grew up in New York City and moved to Los Angeles after World War II.[2] Her parents, a trade unionist mother and a political activist father came from Poland and Russia and both exposed Goldman to art and politics at an early age.[4]

Goldman went to the High School of Music and Art in New York. When her family moved to Los Angeles, Goldman enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[4] During her time there, she became involved in civil rights. She took part in the student boycott against barbers in Westwood who would not cut the hair of Black veterans.[4] Goldman did not finish her degree at this time; instead she chose to dedicate herself to civil rights for Mexican-Americans.[5] She lived in East Los Angeles, where she learned to speak Spanish and in 1952 married John Garcia.[5]

Her marriage to Garcia lasted a short time and later she had another brief marriage.[5] For some time, Goldman worked in a factory[5] and then as a bookkeeper to support herself and her son, Eric Garcia.[4] During this time, she continued to be a civil rights activist and was subpoenaed to appear at the panel of the House Un-American Activities Committee where she did not answer any of their questions.[5]

In the 1960s she returned to UCLA to complete her B.A. in art.[4] Goldman received a M.A. in art history from California State University, Los Angeles (1966)and returned to UCLA to get her PhD in art history in 1977.[4] When Goldman chose her doctoral topic for her PhD, she had to wait several years for a faculty member to approve her choice of modern Mexican Art.[4]

She taught at Santa Ana College, until 1992.[5]

She helped save the "America Tropical" mural, by David Alfaro Siqueiros.[6]

Goldman had an impressive collection of archival material relating to art and artists which she donated to the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at UC Santa Barbara.[5]

She died in Los Angeles from Alzheimer's disease.[5]

Works

• Mexican muralism: its social-educative roles in Latin America and the United States, Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, Austin, 1980
• Contemporary Mexican Painting in a Time of Change 1981; University of New Mexico Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-8263-1562-5
• Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States. University of Chicago Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-226-30124-2.
• Shifra M. Goldman, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto (eds) Arte Chicano: a comprehensive annotated bibliography of Chicano art, 1965-1981, Chicano Studies Library Publications Unit, University of California, 1985, ISBN 978-0-918520-09-8

Quotes

"I was never in the mainstream, never in all my life. I was born on the margins, lived on the margins, and have always sympathized with the margins. They make a lot more sense to me than the mainstream."[4]

References

External links

• Shifra Goldman Papers at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, Special Collections, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Shifra Goldman Interview (1983 video from the Califas: Chicano Art and Culture in California Collection)
• http://www.artnexus.com/Notice_View.aspx?DocumentID=23591
• http://www.malcs.org/2011/09/belated-obituary-shifra-goldman-1926-2011/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20111024025552/http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2011/10/shifra_goldman_celebrated_as_t.php
• http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/09/13/28800/well-known-latino-art-scholar-shifra-goldman-85-di/
• http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/commentary/movie-miento/rip-shifra-goldman-85-longtime-champion-of-chicano-latin-american-art.html

---