Born in Wuxi, Jiangsu in 1928, Walasse Ting is an artist celebrated for his colourful and bright depictions of animals, flora and sultry women. He briefly studied at the Shanghai Art Academy in the 1940s, before leaving for Paris in 1948 at the age of nineteen. There he became associated with artists belonging to the avant-garde group CoBrA. In 1957, he travelled to New York, where he befriended the American artist Sam Francis; here Ting became strongly influenced by Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. In 1964 he wrote One Cent Life, edited by Francis and published by E.W. Kornfeld, which involved collaborating with twenty-eight European and American Pop Art and Expressionist artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Joan Mitchell, and included sixty-two original lithographs. In 1977, he won the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for his drawings. His paintings during this period are filled with bold dripping brushstrokes mixed with bright acrylic pigments, but by the 1970s, he began experimenting with figures, developing the distinctive style that we are so familiar with today. His paintings are a sheer testimony to love, life and beauty. His paintings of women, flowers, cats, fish, horses, and watermelons are often painted in a rich palette of bright acrylics on rice paper, layered with powerful effervescent brushstrokes in Chinese ink. He passed away in 2010.
Alisan Fine Arts organised Ting’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong in 1986 and has since then held 11 solo shows for him. Alisan's inaugural exhibition at our new gallery location in New York City in November 2023 celebrates a new chapter and the vibrant legacy of Walasse Ting, coinciding with Ting's first solo museum exhibition in the United States, Walasse Ting: Parrot Jungle, at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. In 2016, the Musée Cernuschi in Paris also held the first large-scale retrospective exhibition of Ting's work in France. His works have been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Chicago Institute of Art; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Tate Gallery, London; Musée Cernuschi, Paris; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai; Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan; Hong Kong Museum of Art; M+, Hong Kong.
BIOGRAPHY
1928 Born in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China
1940 Studied at the Shanghai Art Academy, China
1948 Moved to Hong Kong
1953 Arrived in Paris, France
1957 Moved to New York, United States
1961 First exhibited with Sam Francis, Arte e Contemplazione, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
1962 The Century 21 Exposition World Fair, with Sam Francis, Seattle, USA
1972 The Fresh Air School, with Sam Francis & Joan Mitchell, Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, Pittsburg, USA
1974 Became an American citizen
1977 Awarded a fellowship for drawing from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, USA
2010 Passed away on May 17 in New York, USA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023-2024
2017
2016-17
2010
2009
2008
2002
2001
2000
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1980
1979
1978
1977
1975
1974
1973
1972
1971
1970
1969
1968
1967
1966
1965
1964
1963
1962
1961
1960
1959
1957
1956
1954
1952
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Asian-American Abstraction: Historic to Contemporary, Hollis Taggart, New York, USA
2023
Art021, Alisan Fine Arts, Shanghai Exhibition Centre, Shanghai, China
Beyond Tradition: The Metamorphosis of Chinese Art, Alisan Fine Arts, Cromwell Place, London, UK
Ink Asia, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong
Art Basel Hong Kong, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong
Inaugural Art SG, Alisan Fine Arts, Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore
2022-2023
2022
Being, Zhi Art Museum, Chengdu, China
Contemporary Chinese Art, Asian Art in London, Alisan Fine Arts, Cromwell Place, London, UK
Individuals, Networks, Expressions, M+, Hong Kong
Art Basel Hong Kong, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong
Celebrating a Friendship: Walasse Ting & Sam Francis, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
NOT A Fashion Store!, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
Ink City, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong
Walasse Ting, Sam Francis, Ayako Rokkaku: Perpetual Colours, Phillips, Hong Kong
2016-17
Sam Francis & Friends - Ting, Appel, Alechinsky, Museum Jan van der Togt, Amstelveen, Netherlands
2016
2015
2012
2010
Sam Francis and Walasse Ting: Friends, Gallery Delaive, Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Fresh Air School: Sam Francis, Walasse Ting, Joan Mitchell, Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA
The Century 21 Exposition World Fair, with Sam Francis & Walasse Ting, Seattle, USA
Arte e Contemplazione, with Sam Francis & Walasse Ting, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Tate Gallery, London, UK
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY, USA
Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
MOCA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, USA
Chicago Art Institue, Chicago, IL, USA
Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA, USA
Chrysler Museum, Provincetown, MA, USA
Baltimore Museum, Baltimore, MD, USA
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, USA
Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hannover, NH, USA
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
U.S. Steel, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Gulf Oil Corp, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Philadephia Museum of Art, Philadephia, PA, USA
Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, PA, USA
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, USA
Musée Cernuschi, Paris, France
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark
Randers Kunstmuseum, Jutland, Denmark
National Gallery of Art, Reykjavik, Iceland
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
M+ Museum, Hong Kong
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
1961 My Shit and My Love. 10 Poems. Walasse Ting, poems by Walasse Ting, lithographs by Maurice Beaudet & Georges Girard, Smith Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
1964 One Cent Life, poems by Walasse Ting, edited by Sam Francis, E.W.Kornfeld, Bern, Switzerland
1967 Chinese Moonlight, 63 poems by 33 poets, Wittenborn & Co, New York, USA
1969 Hot and Sour Soup, poems by Walasse Ting, Sam Francis Foundation, California, USA
1971 Green Banana, poems by Walasse Ting, Rosengreen Litografi, Copenhagen, Denmark
1974 Trip, Walasse Ting, Adrien Maeght Gallery, Paris, France
All in My Head, Walasse Ting, Yves Rivière, Paris, France
Good Morning, text by Walasse Ting, Atelier Clot, Paris, France
1977 Red Mouth, poem by Walasse Ting, Hong Kong
1984 Rice Paper Paintings, Selected letters, Yves Rivière, Paris, France
1988 Jolies Dames, one poem by Walasse Ting, Yves Rivière, Paris, France
1993 Blue Sky, poems by Walasse Ting, Art Unlimited, Amsterdam, Netherlands
1995 Acrylic on Canvas, essays by Mia Ting & Walasse Ting, Guy Pieters Gallery, Knokke-Heist, Belgium
1997 A Very Hot Day, Shanghai Art Museum Solo Exhibition, poems by Walasse Ting, Jesse Ting, USA
2024 Walasse Ting: Parrot Jungle, Solo Exhibition by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Skira, Milan, Itlay
