Ponti Art Gallery is interested in buying and selling works of art by this artist.

Walasse Ting, born as Ding Xiongquan on October 13, 1928, in Wuxi, China, was a self-taught artist whose vibrant and colorful works have captivated audiences worldwide. His journey as an artist began in the streets of Shanghai, where he first started painting. Despite briefly attending the Shanghai Art Academy, Ting considered himself largely self-taught, learning to draw with chalk on the streets at a young age. In 1952, with only five American dollars in his pocket and without a visa, Ting moved to Paris. Life in Paris was challenging, but it was there that he became associated with the avant-garde group COBRA, which included artists such as Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, and Pierre Alechinsky. This group was known for its experimental approach to art, embracing spontaneity and color, which had a profound influence on Ting's artistic development. Ting's early works were influenced by the CoBrA group, characterized by expressive, childlike imagery. However, his style evolved significantly over the years. In 1957, he moved to the United States and settled in New York, where he became associated with the Pop Art movement and Abstract Expressionism. This period marked a significant transition in his work from monochrome ink works to vibrant, colorful art—a break from the traditional Chinese painting he had previously completed. In New York, Ting's work began to transition from black and white abstractions reminiscent of Zao Wou-ki to boldly colored figurative works blending calligraphic brushstrokes with splatters, splashes, and bright fields of color. His widely collected series of female nudes exemplify his embrace of this decidedly Western, vivid coloration. He befriended artists such as Sam Francis, who helped publish "1 Cent Life" (1964), a book of Ting’s poetry illustrated by artists including Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Ting's most famous creation, the art book "1¢ Life" (1963), merges all these influences. In it, Ting pairs his subversive, bawdy poetry with 27 illustrations by artists such as Alechinsky, Appel, Francis, Joan Mitchell, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Wesselmann, Warhol, and many other budding luminaries of the era. This book became a testament to Ting's ability to bring together European avant-gardists, second-generation Abstract Expressionists, and Pop artists in a unique and harmonious collection. Throughout his career, Ting's work was a unique blend of bright fluorescent colors infused by an appreciation for the sensory pleasure of the natural world. His subjects are joyful: parrots, flowers, cats, and beautiful women in bright pinks, oranges, blues, and greens. Ting's paintings often featured female figures surrounded by flowers and other decorative elements, which he called "Cat Women." These works often nodded to Tang Dynasty paintings and expressed the freedoms he relished while retaining some of the elements and values of his home country. Ting's work evolved into a pictorial synthesis in the 1970s; the Chinese calligraphy of the poetic word merged with the expressive images of Western abstraction. His work also moved towards the figurative, painting the female figure, his muse par excellence, in the evocative style that has become familiar to today's art lover. His original artworks with acrylic paint on rice paper, in neon colors, fluorescent, are 'always the woman' in every pose; erotizing, European or Asian, surrounded by parrots, grasshoppers, cats, horses, flowers, and fruit. Walasse Ting became a striking figure in New York's street life, known for his extravagant suits and cruising the streets in a blue or bright pink Rolls Royce. His studio near his home in Greenwich Village was a hub of creativity, where he painted surrounded by muses, sometimes as groupies, often as mistresses. Ting's generosity was well-known, and he often shared his prosperity with his entourage, including muses and gallery holders who had his work in stock. Despite his success, Ting experienced moments of melancholy and homesickness for his motherland China. Yet, he continued to paint obsessively, creating images that were a pleasure on the senses and appealed to those who shared his passion for beauty in the natural world. His style, original and atypical, gave his works a great singularity, using Chinese cultural codes and representations of his culture, notably with the representation of fish and geishas, which were an integral part of his artistic reflection. Ting admired Matisse’s work, and the flat areas of color in his works can be directly referred to. His status as an artist was confirmed by his works being auctioned all over the world, and his paintings are found in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, and the Hong Kong Museum of Art. In the latter part of his life, Walasse Ting lived between New York and Amsterdam, with his art circulating worldwide, joining collections at prestigious institutions such as the Tate Modern and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He liked Holland because the canals reminded him of Hangzhou, but New York continued to call him back. That was where he married his wife and where he once worked in a big studio in which paint splattered the walls and glimmered like multi-colored rain. Walasse Ting passed away on May 17, 2010, in New York, leaving behind a legacy that continues to resonate with Chinese viewers as much as it does to Western audiences. His eye for beauty and joy intuitively traversed geographies, uniting seemingly disparate aesthetics and finding harmony where others might find dissonance or discord. His work remains a testament to his unique vision and his ability to blend the influences of East and West into a singular, vibrant, and joyful artistic expression. Biography