Walasse Ting (, 13 October 1928 – 17 May 2010) was a Chinese-American visual artist and poet. His colorful paintings have attracted critical admiration and a popular following. Common subjects include nude women and cats, birds and other animals.

Background

He was born on 13 October 1928 in

Wuxi Wuxi ( zh, s=无锡, p=Wúxī, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu, China. As of the 2024 census, it had a population of 7,495,000. The city lies in the southern Yangtze delta and borders Lake Tai. Notable landmarks include Lihu Park, the Mt. Lings ...

, China. The youngest of four sons of Ting Ho Ching and Ying Ping Si, who owned and managed factories that made boxes and other things. He briefly studied art at Shanghai College of Fine Arts. In 1951, he moved to Hong Kong, then settled in Paris shortly thereafter.

Career

Ting started his career as an artist in Paris in the 1950s. There, he associated with artists such as

Karel Appel Christiaan Karel Appel (; 25 April 1921 – 3 May 2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders of the avant-gard ...

Asger Jorn Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. The largest collection of Jorn's works� ...

, and

Pierre Alechinsky Pierre Alechinsky (; born 19 October 1927) is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to tachisme, abstract expressionism, and lyrical abstraction. Life Alechinsky was born in Schaerbeek, Belgium, to ...

, members of the

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

group

CoBrA COBRA or Cobra, often stylized as CoBrA, was a European avant-garde art group active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels ...

. In 1957, he moved to the United States, and settled in New York where his work was influenced by pop art and

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

. He began primarily as an abstract artist, but the bulk of his work since the mid-1970s has been described as popular figuratism, with broad areas of color painted with a Chinese brush and

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Dep ...

. He is perhaps best known for his series of paintings featuring women, which he called "Cat Women." These works often featured female figures surrounded by flowers and other decorative elements. Ting was also known for his collaborations with poets, including

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

and

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate ...

, and his own poetry, which often featured themes of love and desire. He lived in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

in the 1990s, but regularly moved between there and New York. He is the author of 13 books, including "All in my Head" (Walasse Ting & Roland Topor, 1974) and "One Cent Life" ( Eberhard W. Kornfeld, 1964) a portfolio of 62 original lithographs by 28 artists, including

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...

, Kiki Kogelnik,

Tom Wesselmann Thomas K. Wesselmann (February 23, 1931 – December 17, 2004) was an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture. Early years Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati. From 1949 to 1951 he atten ...

James Rosenquist James Albert Rosenquist (November 29, 1933 – March 31, 2017) was an American artist and one of the proponents of the pop art movement. Drawing from his background working in sign painting, Rosenquist's pieces often explored the role of advert ...

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

and

Sam Francis Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,

. He won the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

Award (for Drawing) in 1970. In 1990

Louis Stern Louis Stern (born January 7, 1945) is a veteran Los Angeles art dealer and President of Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood, California. Stern deals in the secondary market for Impressionist and Modern works. His gallery’s program specializes ...

presented an exhibition of recent works on rice paper in his Beverly Hills gallery. His works are found in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide, including the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: * The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Ne ...

, New York;

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

, New York;

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

; the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

, Washington, DC;

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, London;

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

, Paris and the

Hong Kong Museum of Art The Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA) is the first and one of the main art museums of Hong Kong, located in located in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, near the Victoria Harbour waterfront, providing a scenic view of Hong Kong’s skyline. It is a publ ...

, among others. He was sometimes referred to by his Chinese name "丁雄泉" or its various romanizations: Ding Xiongquan or Ting Hsiung-ch'uan. In the 1970s, his color and female-themed style gradually formed, and his works integrated the spirit of eastern and western painting performances, which reached their peak in the 1980s. In 1970, Ding won a painting grant from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and his works are stored in many world-class art galleries. In the mid-1980s, he set up a studio in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and in 2001 he permanently settled in that city. He was unable to create after a stroke in 2002.

Personal life and death

In 1982, Ting married artist Natalie Lipton (d. 1983); they had two children and lived in the

Westbeth Artists Community Westbeth Artists Housing is a non-profit housing, nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing affordable living and working space for artists and New York City arts organizations, arts organizations in New York City. The comp ...

. Ting died from a

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its ventricles, or into both. An ICH is a type of bleeding within the skull and one kind of stro ...

at a care facility in Manhattan on 17 May 2010, at age 81.

References

External links

Large collection of original Walasse Ting paintings at Gallery Delaive
*
Website about Walasse Ting in Chinese - Xiongquan Ding - 丁雄泉
* * Gives slightly different timeline.
Biography and gallery at Gallery Delaive
* *

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC {{DEFAULTSORT:Ting, Wallase 1929 births 2010 deaths Artists from Shanghai American contemporary painters 20th-century American painters American male painters American abstract painters 20th-century American male artists Chinese emigrants to the United States Chinese expatriates in France