Martin Wong

Martin Wong (11 July 1946 – 12 August 1999) was an American painter of the late twentieth century. Wong was born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Chinatown district of San Francisco, California. He studied ceramics at Humboldt State University, graduating in 1968. Through college and for another 10 years he was active in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene, including stints as a set designer for the performance art groups The Cockettes and ... more

Martin Wong (11 July 1946 – 12 August 1999) was an American painter of the late twentieth century. Wong was born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Chinatown district of San Francisco, California. He studied ceramics at Humboldt State University, graduating in 1968. Through college and for another 10 years he was active in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene, including stints as a set designer for the performance art groups The Cockettes and Angels of Light. He was openly gay. In 1978 he moved to Manhattan, eventually settling in the Lower East Side, where his attention turned exclusively to painting. According to Wong, his move to New York was precipitated by a friendly challenge: Wong's mature work 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". He is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Nuyorican poet Miguel Piñero,... less