Staging the Diaspora: Vernacular Image-making in May’s Studio, San Francisco, 1920s–1940s

Art historians rarely study the backdrops, props, and costumes used in studio photography or the artisans who made them. Here I examine such “stagecraft” captured by May’s Photo Studio, San Francisco, uncovering the collaborations and rivalries among its diverse makers and performers. I show how they assembled optical illusions that bridge seemingly disparate chronotopes, fabricated surfaces that convey material and emotional cravings, and layered words and images to channel virtuosity, prestige, and political relevance across cultures. Their creations, I argue, embody the self-reinventing prowess of the diaspora and constitute a vernacular modernism, characterized by transmedial promiscuity and collective imagining.