The Life and Art of Bernice Bing

San Francisco native, Chinese American artist, and community activist Bernice Bing was a bridge between many worlds. Bernice Bing (1936-1998) was known as “Bingo,” and overcame multiple barriers of discrimination as a woman, as an Asian-American, and as a lesbian. She was among the courageous, creative individuals withstanding the forces of conformity and oppression in post-World War II America. But Bing’s marginal status during the Beat era of the 1950s actually gave her an advantage. By the time she arrived on the scene, San Francisco’s avant-garde had coalesced into a self-sufficient underground community, op-erating its own artist-and-poet-run galleries and presses and providing much of its own audience, and thus remained free from the tastemakers of the art establishment.

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