Walasse Ting, Who Bridged Cultures With Paint and Prose

The painter and poet Walasse Ting in Hong Kong in 1953.Credit...The Estate of Walasse Ting

Overlooked No More: Walasse Ting, Who Bridged Cultures With Paint and Prose

His style as a poet and artist was informed by his upbringing in Shanghai and his years in Paris. He then joined the Pop-fueled studios of New York.

By Will Heinrich

Published May 16, 2025Updated May 29, 2025

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

Flickering among the major figures of postwar art — the Minimalist sculptor Dan Flavin, the avant-garde artist Pierre Alechinsky, the abstract painter Sam Francis and others — is the radiant shadow of Walasse Ting.

Walasse Ting / Cats

 

WALASSE TING

CATS

The History of Walasse Ting

丁雄泉 TINGS MUSE; THE HISTORY OF WALASSE TING

BERT KUIPERS

OWNER BERT KUIPER KUNSTHANDEL

In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s of the last century, Walasse Ting's work was immensely popular in America and Europe.

 

Li Wentao’s Cryptic Paintings Of Contemplative Women

Chinese artist Li Wentao’s work is theatrical. It’s not just way the artist stages the lone character, a young, fragile woman, always barefoot, always in some state of undress. Clearly something’s on her mind. It’s the way we identify with her, just as we identify with, become invested in, a play’s protagonist.

It’s easy to conflate the artist and subject. The woman looks out a window, off to the side, at the viewer. We can’t describe, much less identify, her expression. Pensive, wary, frightened? Or does she share some quiet secret, some personal conspiracy? In any event, she doesn’t wear her face-the-world face. We don’t know her story but we want to. We want to keep looking at the work, hoping for some resolution of whatever situation she’s in.