Martin Wong
| Martin Wong | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 11, 1946 Portland, Oregon |
| Died | August 12, 1999 (aged 53) San Francisco, California |
| Alma mater | Humboldt State University |
| Known for | Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Printmaking, Ceramics |
Martin Wong (July 11, 1946 – August 12, 1999) was a Chinese-American painter of the late twentieth century. His work has been described as a meticulous blend of Social realism and visionary art styles. Wong's paintings often explored multiple ethnic and racial identities, exhibited cross-cultural elements, demonstrated multilingualism, and celebrated his queer sexuality.
Martin Wong was born in Portland, Oregon on July 11, 1946. An only child, Wong was raised by his parents Benjamin and Florence Wong Fie in the Chinatown district of San Francisco. Demonstrating a proclivity for artistic expression at an early age, Wong started to paint at the age of 13. His mother was a strong supporter of his artistic inclinations and kept much of his early work. Wong attended George Washington High School, graduating in 1964. He continued his education at Humboldt State University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in Ceramics in 1968. Through college and for another 10 years Wong would continue to travel between Eureka and San Francisco practicing his artistic craft. During this time, Wong had an apartment in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and was active in the Bay Area art scene, including stints as a set designer for the performance art group The Angels of Light, an offshoot of The Cockettes. While involved with The Angels of Light, Wong participated in the emerging hippie movement and engaged in the period's climate of sexual freedom and experimentation with psychedelic drugs. By the late 70s, Wong made the decision to move to New York to pursue his career as an artist. According to Wong, his move to New York was precipitated by a friendly challenge:
In 1978 Wong moved to Manhattan, eventually settling in the Lower East Side, where his attention turned exclusively to painting. Following his arrival, Wong moved into Meyers Hotel on Stanton Street where he cut a deal with the manager for three months of free rent if he completed repair work on three structurally damaged rooms. As it would turn out, three months turned into three years when he picked up a job as a night watchman for the building. He would later move into a six-story walk-up apartment on Ridge Street that was occupied by heroin dealers and addicts in 1981. Wong initially supported himself after his move to New York by working at the bookstore in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Largely self-taught, Wong's paintings ranged from gritty, heartfelt renderings of the decaying Lower East Side, to playful, almost kitschy depictions of New York's and San Francisco's Chinatowns, to Traffic Signs for the Hearing Impaired. In self-describing the subject matter of some of his paintings, Wong once said: "Everything I paint is within four blocks of where I live and the people are the people I know and see all the time."
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