Pacita Abad archives join Stanford's landmark collection of Asian American artists
Pacita Abad, 100 Years of Freedom: From Batanes to Jolo (1998). Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. Photo courtesy of Pacita Abad Art Estate.
NEW YORK, NY.—
Tina Kim Gallery shared that Stanford University has acquired the complete Pacita Abad Archives, a transformative gift from the Pacita Abad Art Estate—marking one of the most significant archival acquisitions of an Asian American artist in recent history.
Spanning over 120 linear feet and more than three decades of material, the Archives offer a sweeping view into Pacita’s singular life and practice: from her early days in the Bay Area to her kaleidoscopic trapunto paintings, political works, and global travels across over 60 countries. The collection includes thousands of unpublished items—photographs, sketches, letters, and ephemera—culminating in a dynamic portrait of an artist who redefined the language of contemporary art.
Now housed at the Cantor Arts Center and Stanford Libraries’ Department of Special Collections, the archive will be fully catalogued and digitized for scholars and the public, thanks to dedicated funding from the Estate.
Since 2021, Tina Kim Gallery has proudly represented Pacita Abad’s work in close collaboration with the Pacita Abad Art Estate, alongside Silverlens Galleries in Manila. Her work has been collected by the Met, Tate Modern, Smithsonian, Hirshhorn, Walker Art Center, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Singapore Art Museum, M+, and more than 45 major museum collections worldwide. Most recently, her acclaimed retrospective—organized by the Walker Art Center and curated by Victoria Sung and Matthew Villar Miranda—traveled to SFMOMA, MoMA PS1, and the Art Gallery of Ontario (2023–2025). Her inclusion in the 2024 Venice Biennale further affirmed her global resonance.
This archival gift marks a significant preservation of Pacita’s extraordinary legacy and a call to future generations of artists, scholars, and cultural leaders to imagine boldly, politically, and with joy.
