"Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970" is a first-ever survey exploring the lives and artistic production of artists of Asian Ancestry active in the United States before 1970, and features ten essays by leading scholars, biographies of more than 150 artists, and more than 400 reproductions of artwork and photographs of artists, together creating compelling narratives of this heretofore forgotten American art history.

Gordon H. Chang is a professor of history at Stanford University and codirector of the Stanford Asian American Art Project. He is the author of many books and essays, including Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972 and Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and His Internment Writings, 1942-1945.

Mark Dean Johnson is a professor of art at San Francisco State University and co-director of the Stanford Asian American Art Project. He has collaboratively organized exhibitions such as Chang Dai-chien in California and With New Eyes: Toward an Asian American Art History in the West, and conferences including Expanding American Art History to Reflect Multiethnic Diversity. He is also the editor of At Work: The Art of California Labor.

Paul J. Karlstrom, former West Coast regional director of the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, writes about modern and contemporary art in the United States. He is the editor of On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art, 1900-1950 and has contributed to major studies of Diego Rivera, Jacob Lawrence, and Yun Gee.