See Never-Before-Shown Martin Wong Works, Now On View in a Show Of His Chinatown Paintings
ARTnews highlighted “Martin Wong: Chinatown USA,” a monographic exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago featuring over 100 works by New York artist Martin Wong, including 11 never-before-exhibited paintings (plus the previously unseen reverse of one large canvas). The show focuses on Wong’s depictions of the Chinatowns of San Francisco, where he was raised, and New York, where he lived from 1978 to 1994, and includes imagery ranging from 241 Canal Street and Chinese New Year parades to figures like Bruce Lee and Mei Lanfang, as well as communities such as graffiti artists and Puerto Rican poets. It follows a related exhibition, “Martin Wong: Popeye,” at P.P.O.W in New York that closed June 6, and includes Wong’s 1982 painting “Tai Ping Tien Kuo (Tai Ping Kuo),” which resurfaced at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2025 with a $1.6 million asking price and was acquired by the Broad. Major lenders to the Wrightwood 659 show include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Broad, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and SFMOMA, and the catalog notes Wong’s earlier reluctance to show his Chinatown paintings due to fears of stereotyping and family discouragement.
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This story was covered in Repatriation Reckonings and Museums Under Siege