Martin Wong was born in Portland, Ore., in 1946 and grew up in San Francisco, where his parents worked for Standard Oil and the Bechtel Corporation. He received a degree in ceramics from Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., and joined the Angels of Light, a mystically oriented gay street performance troupe in San Francisco.
At 30 Wong decided to become a painter and, not wanting to return to school, began an arduous process of self-education.
Wong arrived in New York in 1978, settling into an apartment on the Lower East Side and supporting himself with a job in the bookstore of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He first exhibited his work in 1981 at ABC No Rio on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side in an exhibition organized by Colab, an artists’ group known for its impromptu ”first come, first hung” shows, which were open to anyone while space lasted.
At the opening Wong met Miguel Pinero, the poet and prize-winning playwright of ”Short Eyes” and a well-known figure on the Lower East Side.
For the next few years Mr. Pinero was Mr. Wong’s close friend and mentor, introducing him to the underbelly of the local art, poetry and drug scenes and providing entree to the local Hispanic community that figures so prominently in his paintings of the 80’s. Mr. Wong made many portraits of Mr. Pinero, based several paintings on his prison experiences (the inspiration for ”Short Eyes”) and incorporated poems by Mr. Pinero into several paintings, which he considered collaborations. Mr. Pinero died in 1988.
Martin Wong, a painter whose meticulous visionary realism is among the lasting legacies of New York’s East Village art scene of the 1980’s and a precursor of the identity-driven work of the 90’s, died 1999 at his parents’ home in San Francisco. He was 53 and had lived in San Francisco since 1994.
He died of AIDS-related causes, said Barry Blinderman, a close friend and director of Illinois State University Galleries in Normal, Ill.
Year | Exhibition Title | Gallery/Museum | Solo/Group |
---|---|---|---|
2014 | The Armory Show 2014 | New York, NY | Group |
2014 | City as Canvas: New York Graffiti from the Martin Wong Collection | Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY | Group |
2013 | Texas Contemporary 2013 | George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. | Group |
2013 | ADAA: The Art Show 2013 | Anton Kern Gallery, New York | Solo |
2013 | Secrets, Loss, Memory, and Courage: Works by Gay Male Artists | Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA | Group |
2013 | Double Hamburger Deluxe, | Marlborough Chelsea, New York, NY | Group |
2013 | Blues for Smoke | The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH | Group |
2013 | Taiping Tianguo, A History of Possible Encounters | SALT, Istanbul, Turkey | Group |
2013 | NOT OVER: 25 Years of Visual AIDS | La Mama La Galleria, New York, NY | Group |
2013 | IMUUR2, Martin | The Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY | Group |
2013 | IMUUR2, ction, Installation by Danh Vo | The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN | Group |
2013 | Blues for Smoke | Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY | Group |
2012 | The Happy Fainting of Painting | Zwinger Galerie, Berlin, Germany | Group |
2012 | Julie Ault/Heinz Peter Knes/Danh Vo/Martin Wong | Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, Germany | Group |
2012 | The Spectrum of Sexuality | Hebrew Union College Museum, NY | Group |
2012 | Come Closer: Art Around the Bowery, 1969-1989 | The New Museum, New York, NY | Group |
2012 | We The People | Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York, NY | Group |
2012 | B-OUT | Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
2012 | Silence | The Menil Collection, Houston, TX | Group |
2012 | Taiping Tianguo, A History of Possible Encounters | Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong | Group |
2012 | Every Exit is an Entrance: 30 years of Exit Art, | Exit Art, New York, NY | Group |
2012 | Blues for Smoke | MOCA Geffen Contemporary, Los Angeles CA | Group |
2012 | Contemporary Painting, 1960 to the Present | SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA | Group |
2011 | Quodlibet III – Alphabets and Instruments | Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, Germany | Group |
2011 | Art, Access & Decay: NY 1975-1985 | Subliminal Projects Gallery, Los Angeles, CA | Group |
2011 | Acquisition and installation of Stanton Near Forsyth Street | The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, NY | Group |
2011 | Art in the Streets iti paintings and black books | Museum of the City of New York | Group |
2011 | Art in the Streets iti paintings and black books | Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), LA | Group |
2010 | Martin Wong Works 1980 1998 | Galerie Daniel Buccholz, Cologne, Germany | Solo |
2010 | Strange Comfort (Afforded by the Profession) | Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland | Group |
2010 | Urban Archives | The Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY | Group |
2010 | Global/National: The Order of Chaos | Exit Art, New York, NY | Group |
2010 | Downtown Pix: Mining the Fales Archives | Grey Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
2009 | Martin Wong: Everything Must Go | P·P·O·W, New York, NY | Solo |
2009 | Between Art and Life: The Painting and Sculpture Collection | San Francisco, CA | Group |
2009 | Acquisition and Installation of Rapture, Church and Market | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), CA | Group |
2008 | Acquisition and installation of Sweet Enuff | De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA | Group |
2008 | The Dorthy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States | National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. | Group |
2008 | Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents 1900 1970 | de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA | Group |
2008 | The Louvrefritos | Cuchifritos Gallery and Project Space, New York, NY | Group |
2008 | Street art Street Life: From 1950s to Now | Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY | Group |
2008 | Idle Youth | Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
2008 | Sweet Oblivion: Graffiti, Drawings, and Photos from the Martin Wong Papers | New York University, Fales Library Special Collection, New York, NY | Group |
2007 | The Price of Nothing: Luxury after the Real Estate Show | EFA Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
2006 | Big City Fall | Fuse Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
2006 | The Downtown Show, The New York Art Scene 1974-1984 | The NYU Grey Art Gallery and The Fales Library, New York, NY | Group |
2004 | Untitled | Chinese Historical Society of America Museum of Art,SF | Solo |
2004 | 21 | P·P·O·W, New York, NY | Group |
2004 | East Village USA | New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY | Group |
2003 | Charlie Ahearn: Artists | P·P·O·W, New York, NY | Group |
2003 | Look Up! Contemplating the Skies | New York Academy of Sciences, New York, NY | Group |
2003 | Commodification of Buddhism | Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY | Group |
2002 | Social Landscape | P·P·O·W, New York, NY | Group |
2002 | Subject Matters: An Exhibition of Subject Driven Art | Kravitz/Wehby Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
2002 | Sex Pots: The Erotic Life of Clay | San Francisco State University Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA | Group |
2001 | Martin Wong: Storefronts 1984-86 | P·P·O·W, New York, NY | Solo |
2001 | One Planet Under A Groove: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art | Bronx Museum of Art New York, NY | Group |
2001 | Context: Recent Art from Cuba in the Permanent Collection | Bronx Museum of Art, NY | Group |
2001 | Humor and Rage: 5 Contemporary Painters from the United States | Fundacio Caixa Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain | Group |
2001 | Pollack to Today | Whitney Museum of American Art, Permanent collections, New York, NY | Group |
2000 | Manhattan Contrasts | NY Historic Society, New York, NY | Group |
2000 | The Figure: Another Side of Modernism, Paintings from 1950 to the Present | Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Staten Island, NY | Group |
1999 | Martin Wong: The Eureka Years | Humbolt State University First Street Gallery, Eureka, CA | Solo |
1999 | Radiant Children: Art of the East Village | Lamia Ink!, New York, NY | Group |
1998 | Sweet Oblivion: The Urban Landscape of Martin Wong | The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY | Solo |
1998 | Martin Wong : New Work | P·P·O·W, New York, NY | Solo |
1998 | Sweet Oblivion: The Urban Landscapes of Martin Wong | University Galleries, Illinois | Solo |
1998 | Sweet Oblivion: The Urban Landscapes of Martin Wong | State University, Normal, IL | Solo |
1998 | Conviviality & Confetti: Holiday Imagery in Art | The Noyes Museum of Art Oceanville, NJ | Group |
1998 | FotoGraf | The Web Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1997 | Reflections of Taste, American Art from Greenwich Collections | Bruce Museum Greenwich, CT | Group |
1996 | Sites of Chinatown | Museum of Chinese in the Americas, New York, NY | Group |
1996 | The Usual Suspects | Avanti Gallery New York, NY | Group |
1996 | Blood Fairies | Artists Space, New York, NY | Group |
1996 | Arts Communities/AIDS Communities: Realizing the Archive Project | Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA | Group |
1996 | Give Life to Art: The First Step | Gallery (+) Positive and Visual AIDS, Fire Island Pines, NY | Group |
1996 | Our Dieties | ISE Art Foundation, New York, NY | Group |
1995 | Art for Education: Public Art in the School System | The Palace Hotel, New York, NY | Group |
1995 | Art at the Edge: Social Turf | High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA | Group |
1995 | Murder | Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY | Group |
1995 | In a Different Light | University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA | Group |
1995 | Art as Dramatic Comedy | Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, IL | Group |
1995 | Imperfect | Herter Art Gallery, Amherst, MA | Group |
1995 | Drawn on the Museum | Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT | Group |
1994 | Untitled | York College, Queens, NY | Solo |
1994 | New York Realism: Past and Present | Odakyu Museum, Tokyo, Japan | Group |
1993 | Untitled | San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA | Solo |
1993 | Fallen Idylls: American Figurative Painting | P·P·O·W, New York, NY | Group |
1992 | The New American Cityscape | Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT | Group |
1991 | Soap, Erotic Jail Paintings | The Pyramid Club, New York, NY | Solo |
1991 | Belly of the Beast | Charles Lucien Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1991 | Your House is Mine | Center for Book Arts, New York, NY | Group |
1991 | Queer Art Show | New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA | Group |
1991 | Della Cova | Anne Plumb Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1990 | Tiananmen Memorial Show | Hong Kong Arts Center, Hong Kong | Group |
1990 | Queer | Wessel-O'Conner Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1989 | Future Now | Bass Museum, Miami, FL | Group |
1989 | Center Show | Gay and Lesbian Cultural Center, New York, NY | Group |
1989 | Democracy | DIA Art Foundation, New York, NY | Group |
1989 | Benefit for San Salvador | Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1988 | EXIT ART | Frank Bernaducci Gallery, New York, NY | Solo |
1988 | The Social Club | EXIT ART, New York, NY | Group |
1988 | 1987 Art of the Eighties | Karl Bornstein Gallery, Santa Monica, CA | Group |
1988 | Three Jack-o-Lanterns | Bleecker Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1987 | Here and Now | Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC | Solo |
1987 | Signs of Significance | Sacco's, Ridgefield, CT | Solo |
1987 | Living for the City, | The Saint, New York, NY | Solo |
1987 | Curators' Choice | Gerstadt Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1987 | The Mind's I, Part 1 | Asian Arts Institute, New York, NY | Group |
1986 | Freedom of Painting | Galerie Paradis, Paris, France | Group |
1986 | Eight Urban Painters | Fine Arts Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook | Group |
1985 | Hard Cold Facts | B-Side Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1985 | Photosynthesis | One Penn Plaza, New York, NY | Group |
1985 | Cross Currents | Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia, PA | Group |
1985 | Audacious: Some Extremist Tendencies in East Village Art | Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, IL | Group |
1985 | Precious | Grey Art Gallery, New York University | Group |
1985 | The Monster Show | Nico Smith Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1984 | Untitled | Semaphore, New York, NY | Solo |
1984 | Small Works | NOW Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1984 | The Acid Test | Sensory Evolution Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1984 | Extravaganza | Dramatic Personae Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1984 | Climbing: The East Village | Hal Bromm Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1984 | Situation | Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1983 | A. More Store | Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1983 | Science Fair | Danceteria, New York, NY | Group |
1983 | Underdog | East 7th Street Gallery, New York, NY | Group |
1983 | Resurrection | St. Mark's Intercollegiate Church, New York, NY | Group |
1982 | Crime Show, | ABC No Rio, New York, NY | Group |