Matthew Wong (; March 8, 1984 – October 2, 2019) was a Canadian artist. Self-taught as a painter, Wong received critical acclaim for his work before his death in 2019 at the age of 35.

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times. Education and early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...

, co-chief art critic at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', has praised Wong as "one of the most talented painters of his generation."

Biography

Wong was born in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

in 1984. His family emigrated to

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

when he was seven. When he was fifteen, his family returned to Canada, in part to support the treatment of Wong's

autism Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

. Wong then attended the

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Michigan is one of th ...

, completing a degree in cultural anthropology in 2007. He returned to Hong Kong the same year. In 2010 he enrolled at the

City University of Hong Kong The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a public research university in Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and formally established as the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 ...

School of Creative Media, receiving a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography in 2012. Wong had

Tourette syndrome Tourette syndrome (TS), or simply Tourette's, is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood or adolescence. It is characterized by multiple movement (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic. Common tics are blinkin ...

and suffered from depression throughout his adult life. He died by suicide in 2019 at age 35 in

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

Art career

Wong's creative work began with experiments with photography in 2009 and continued during his time as a student of photography at City University in Hong Kong. Unsatisfied with the idea of becoming a photographer, in 2014 Wong told ''Neoteric Magazine'' that "towards the end of my degree I felt I had gained no real skills or prospects that could take me forward in the professional world." In 2012 he began experimenting with drawing. He began painting landscapes in 2014. In 2016 he returned to Canada, settling in Edmonton. Wong posted his paintings to

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

and attracted the attention of Matthew Higgs, curator and director of White Columns Gallery. Wong attained his first institutional recognition when the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the A ...

acquired his work, ''The West,'' in 2017. The DMA was the only museum to acquire a painting by Wong during his lifetime. Wong went on to exhibit at galleries in New York and Hong Kong. Critic

Jerry Saltz Jerry Saltz (born February 19, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for ''New York magazine, New York'' magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for ''The Village Voice'', ...

called Wong's 2018 solo exhibition at Karma Gallery “one of the most impressive solo New York debuts I’ve seen in a while.” Due to their scarcity in the open market, Wong's works have attracted interest on the auction market. His Edmonton studio remains untouched.

Solo exhibitions and retrospectives

* 2025 ''Matthew Wong , Vincent van Gogh: Painting as a Last Resort'',

Albertina Museum The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...

, Vienna * 2024 ''Matthew Wong , Vincent van Gogh: Painting as a Last Resort'',

Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened o ...

, Amsterdam * 2023 ''The Realm of Appearances'',

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

* 2022 ''The Realm of Appearances,''

* 2021 ''Blue View'',

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

, Toronto * 2019 ''Blue'', Karma, New York * 2019 ''Day by Night'', Massimo De Carlo, Hong Kong * 2018 Karma, New York * 2018 galerie frank elbaz, Paris, France * 2015 ''Pulse of the Land'', Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong

Collections

His work is included in public collections such as the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

, the

, the Aishti Foundation and the Estée Lauder Collection.

Record sale prices

In 2020, a small watercolor on paper simply called ''Untitled'' was sold for four times its original estimate price after attracting a number of bids. His first large painting available in an auction, ''The Realm of Appearances'', was sold in July 2020 for US$1.82 million, twenty times its original estimate. In December 2020, a painting called ''River at Dusk'' was sold for $4.86M, four times its original estimate.

Biography

Art career

Solo exhibitions and retrospectives

Collections

Record sale prices

References

Further reading