Tony Wong

1948 - 2012
Tony Wong, a member of the pioneering generation of Chinese artists who came to the United States in the 1970s, died in New York City on May 10. Wong, who was born in 1948 in Taishan Country in China's Guangdong Province, was educated both in Hong Kong at the Ling Hai Art Academy and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of California in Berkeley from which he graduated in 1975 with two master's degrees. From these studies he developed a unique style of painting and sculpture that blended a muscular western expressionism with literary and artistic influences that ranged from Chicago Imagism, traditional Asian landscape painting, Western folklore, literature and philosophy and Chinese poetry, fables and creation myths. His work is characterized by the transformation of iconic figures and objects into highly personal allegories of love, struggle, search and loss. These are realized with ragged brushstrokes that often present isolated figures engulfed by turbulent fields of luminous color.

Wong's four decade career gained him recognition in both East and West. He first gained widespread Western attention with his inclusion, in 1984, in a group exhibition curated by Marcia Tucker for the American Pavilion of the 41st Venice Biennale. This exhibition, titled Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained reflected the rising interest in neo-expressionism in the early 1980s and included, along with Wong, such artists as Eric Fischl and Roger Brown. Following his participation in this show, Wong gained gallery representation in New York and began to exhibit internationally first in Italy and then in Taiwan, Hong Kong and throughout Asia, where he developed a strong and loyal following. At the time of his death he had just had his one person show at Tina Keng Gallery in Taiwan.

Writing about Wong's work For Art in America in 1985, Gerrit Henry remarked, "[H]e Westernizes his Oriental sources with an Expressionist style, even as he Orientalizes this style of painting by making it lyrical, benign and calm. In a sense he civilizes Expressionism. "

By Eleanor Heartney