This thesis seeks evidence of time, place, and identity, as individualized artistic perspective impacting artists representing groups marginalized within dominant Western, specifically American culture, who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1945–1965. Artists mirror the culture of the time in which they work. To examine this, I employ anthropological, sociological, ethnographic, and art historical pathways in my approach. Ethnic, racial, gender, class, sexual-orientation distinctions and inequities are examined via queer, and Marxist theory considerations, as well as a subjective/objective analysis of documented or existing artworks, philosophical, religious, and cultural theoretical concerns. I examine practice outputs by ethnic/immigrant, homosexual, and bohemian-positioned artists, exploring Saussurean interpretation of language or communicative roles in artwork and iconographic formation.

I argue that varied and multiple Californian identities, as well as uniquely San Franciscan concerns, disseminated opposition to dominant United States cultural valuing and that these groups are often dismissed when produced by groups invisible within a dominant culture. I also argue that World War Two cultural upheaval induced Western societal reorganization enabling increased postmodern cultural inclusivity. Dominant societal repression resulted in ethnographic information being heavily coded by Bay Area artists when considering audiences. I examine alternative cultural support systems, art market accessibility, and attempt to decode product messages which reify enforced societal positioning. Study of subversive art tendencies, or critical expressions of alterity, are contrasted with a backdrop of general cultural period milieu. I utilize textual and California Bay Area archival resources, ethnocentric and other cultural repositories preserving documented period artistic activities. I am seeking personal and cultural histories clouded by temporality and marginalization, mirroring dominant societal dictates of the past and present. Revealed information sheds light on unacknowledged individuals, cultural totality; clarifying the presence of historic, hegemonic value systems, in unquestioned, yet illusory, art historiography.