Joan Hugo, a founding member of ARLIS/NA and the Southern California
chapter, passed away on Tuesday 7 February. She was the librarian of Otis
College of Art for 25 years, having a prescience for that which was
important in contemporary art far ahead of most archivists and librarians.
She collected the contemporary art ephemera that has now become the
resources of major research in the field including artist books, artist
periodicals, multiples and so much more. She also was an art critic for
Artweek and other publications. She then went to work as assistant to the
Provost at Cal Arts for several years, always writing critical essays about
performance art, contemporary art and California art. She was a Francophile
and spoke French as a native, translating articles, translation interviews,
and forwarding the cause of connections between French artists and
California artists. More information about a memorial will be forthcoming. I
think the Southern California chapter should participate in some way of
honoring her.
At ARLIS/NA Conferences, she forwarded the cause of single librarian
libraries and art school libraries and created sessions on the subject.
I had the great pleasure of counting her among my colleagues and friends,
and wrote about her for Library Journal as one of the most prescient
contemporary art librarians in the country. Her clairvoyance made the Otis
Library a stellar partner in the preservation of the record of contemporary
art in the second half of the 20th century.
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