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For immediate release
“DONG KINGMAN: WATERCOLOR
MASTER”
- Retrospective exhibition of 100 Watercolor Paintings and Drawings-
Opens in People’s Republic of China, November 15, 2002 to March
18, 2003
- Seven Decades of Watercolor Paintings-
BEIJING, Nov.15, 2002 - At the invitation of the Ministry of
Culture, People’s Republic of China, the works of internationally
renowned Chinese-American artist, Dong Kingman (1911-2000), will open
in a retrospective exhibition at the National Museum of Chinese Revolution
History in Beijing on November 15th through the 30th. The exhibition,
“Dong Kingman: Watercolor Master,” comprised of nearly 100
watercolor paintings and drawings, spans seven decades of Kingman’s
artistic career.
The exhibit will continue at the Exhibition Galleries, Hong Kong Central
Library (Dec. 28 – Jan. 27) at the invitation of the Leisure and
Cultural Services Department, and then to Shanghai Art Museum (March
5 – March 18, 2003).
In addition to commemorating Kingman’s extraordinary career, Kingman’s
second major exhibit in China coincides with and commemorates 30 years
since relations between United States and China resumed. His prior exhibition
in China in 1981 was the first American one-man show since the resumption
of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“This retrospective reinforces not only Kingman’s mastery
of the medium, but shows the influence of two cultures on his work.
In turn, his career exerts an influence and provides a cultural bridge
on the arts of the two cultures,” noted Monte James, president
of Century Masters, Inc. and curator of the exhibit. “We have on
loan some of the finest examples of his work from museum and private
collections, including ‘Blue Moon’ from the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, ‘South Ferry’ from the Springfield Art Museum
in Missouri, ‘Lighthouse’ from the Butler Institute of American
Art, ‘Piqua, Ohio’ and ‘Trees on Third Street’ from
the Fred Jones Jr., Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma.
Co-hosting “Dong Kingman: Watercolor Master” are the China
International Exhibition Agency in Beijing and Shanghai, and Leisure
and Cultural Services Department in Hong Kong, along with the organizer,
Century Masters, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to the arts.
Major funding is provided by The Starr Foundation.
Kingman, whose paintings are represented in the collections of over
50 museums, is regarded as one of 20th century’s premier
watercolor masters. Born in Oakland, California in 1911, Kingman moved
to Hong Kong with his family at age five where his father sought to
give his children a good Chinese education. According to Chinese custom,
Kingman was given his new name when he entered school. Seeing that he
had talent as an artist, his teacher gave him the name of King (scenery)
Man (composition). In later years, the artist combined the two words
into Kingman and following Chinese custom, he used the family name first
and the given name second, thus Dong Kingman.
He studied Chinese art, calligraphy and literature in his formative
years at the Chan Sun Wen and Lingnan Schools. The Paris- trained painting
master Szeto Wai at Lingnan took a keen interest in young Dong’s
precocious talents. He taught him Chinese classical and French impressionist
styles of painting. The Chinese education and classical art training
had a profound influence on his paintings in how he interpreted nature
and the urban environment, and on his oftentimes mysterious, mythological
and surrealistic world.
Kingman returned to Oakland at age 18. During the Depression era decade
that followed, Kingman would emerge as one of America’s leading
artists and a pioneer of the California Style School of painting. From
1935 to 1941, he participated in the Works Progress Administration (WPA),
along with such painters as Reginald Marsh and Thomas Hart Benton, which
enabled him to explore the watercolor medium and to forge his own unique
East/West style.
A 1936 solo exhibition at the San Francisco Art Association brought
him instant success and national recognition. Art critic Junius Cravens
was effusive: “The young Chinese artist is showing 20 of the freshest,
most satisfying watercolors that have been seen hereabouts in many a
day…He handles his color fluently, in broad telling masses. He
is completely sincere and never superficial…Here is a real watercolor
painter.”
After back to back Guggenheim Fellowships and serving in the Office
of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, he settled in Brooklyn,
exhibited regularly at Midtown Galleries and later at Wildenstein &
Co. He taught art at Columbia University and Hunter College for 10 years
and then became a founding faculty member of Famous Artists School in
Westport, CT.
In the ensuing years, the artist found time to be a goodwill ambassador
when he went on a lecture tour of Asia and Europe for the U.S. State
Department in 1954. His many painting trips to the Far East culminated
in a major exhibition in Hong Kong in the early 70s. Arts of Asia in
a 1973 article noted, “…not a man to rest on his laurels,
he is plumbing new depths to improve and revitalize his work. His latest
objects of study, and the subjects of a delightful series of watercolors,
are trees… the inclination that led him to this phase may be partially
visual, but perhaps it also arises from the Chinese culture that permeates
his soul, the Oriental love of the natural world and its creatures that
has inspired Dong Kingman to seek (his) own visual communion with the
manifold, transient yet eternal forms of life.”
In 1981, the Ministry of Culture, PRC, hosted a critically acclaimed
retrospective of Kingman’s paintings in Beijing, Hangzhou, and
Guangzhou. The exhibition, attended by well over 100,000 people, was
the first American one-man show since the resumption of diplomatic relations
between the U.S. and China. Noted the China Daily Mail, “Just as
the master painters of the Song Dynasty roamed about mountain and stream
to capture the rhythm of nature, Dong Kingman traveled the world capturing
the dynamism of modern life…familiar scenes have been transformed
into a vibrant new vision of life through color schemes with rhythms
that play over the entire surface of the picture. The wind swept skies
which enliven his watercolors remind us of the pleinairism of the French
Impressionists.”
In addition, he created brilliant main title paintings for such films
as “Flower Drum Song.” Over 300 of his film-related works
are permanently housed at the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study
in Beverly Hills, California. In the summer of 2000, the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts & Sciences honored him with a special exhibition,
“Dong Kingman: An American Master in Hollywood.” Among his
charitable activities, he was the honored guest of Hong Kong Rotary
International sponsored exhibit in June 1997 where the sale of his works
raised $70,000 for charities in Hong Kong.
The artist received numerous awards and honors throughout his 70-year
career in the arts. They include two Guggenheim fellowships, the Art
Institute of Chicago International Watercolor Exhibition Award, the
Audubon Artist Gold Medal of Honor, the Philadelphia Watercolor Club
Joseph Pennel Memorial Medal, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Award,
the National Academy of Design 150th Anniversary Gold Medal Award, and
the American Watercolor Society’s highest honor, the Dolphin Medal.
Kingman’s work is in the collections of over 50 institutions, including
the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brooklyn
Museum; Butler Institute of American Art; Fred Jones Jr., Museum of
Art, The University of Oklahoma; the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum;
the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Munson-Williams Proctor Arts Institute;
Museum of Modern Art; Springfield Art Museum; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery;
Toledo Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Recently, the Chinese Historical Society of America and Museum and San
Francisco State University co-sponsored the major “Dong Kingman
in San Francisco” exhibition, inaugurating the Society’s new
facilities.
In early 2002, the retrospective “Dong Kingman: An American Master”
concluded a highly successful national tour of the U.S. Commenting on
the retrospective which opened at the Governor’s Gallery, Legislative
Building in Olympia, WA, Washington’s Governor Gary Locke said,
“…I was looking at more than just paintings. The artist deftly
brings together elements of his Chinese heritage and life in America.
The paintings tell a story of a man’s quest to unite the best of
both his worlds.”
For more information on the artist, log on to www.dongkingman.org
Contact: Dong Kingman, Jr. at kingcom@att.net,
tel. 212-787-1335.
Venue addresses and contacts:
The National Museum of Chinese Revolution History, 16 Dong Chang
An Avenue, Beijing
Shanghai Art Museum, 325 Nan Jing Road West, Shanghai.
Beijing and Shanghai contact: Chen Xiangning, Deputy Director,
America & Oceania Department, China International Exhibition Agency,
ciea-mdb@21cn.com, Attn. Chen
Xiangning, tel. 86-10-6403-1621
Hong Kong Central Library, Exhibition Galleries, 66 Causeway
Bay, Hong Kong
Hong Kong contact: Sun Ho Yim-ming, Tinny, Senior Librarian at
tymsun@lcsd.gov.hk, Attn. Tinny
Sun, tel. 852-2921-2687.
Editors note: You are welcome to use these
images of paintings from the "Dong Kingman: Watercolor
Master" retrospective. Please provide credit as indicated below
image. All rights reserved.
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