Martin Wong

Included in the Martin Wong Catalog Raisonne, this signed sketchbook drawing features the artist’s friend, Jan Rowen.

• Martin Wong (Chinese-American).
• Graphite on paper.
• Hand signed, dated (March 5, 1976) and inscribed across the upper.
• This work appears in the Martin Wong Catalog Raisonne.
• This work is presented matted.

A poignant insight into Wong’s Eureka, California years. A rare early work emanating from Wong’s spiral-bound sketchpad.

Martin Wong’s haunting paintings combine the leftist politics of social realism with a cosmic, transcendent symbology; brick walls and constellations are frequent motifs. A fixture of New York’s East Village art scene in the 1980s, the largely self-taught artist often focused on the city’s blighted downtown landscape. He imbued row houses and ruins with a sense of magic as he considered the intersections of race, sexuality, and history in his urban environment. Wong exhibited extensively in New York before his death in 1999, and his work has been included in exhibitions at the New Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Bass, among other institutions.

Private collection California, via Martin Wong.

Doyle Auctions, New York.