"A long-unseen, 12-foot-wide painting by artist Martin Wong, who created a unique visual vocabulary in the steaming cauldron of 1980s New York alongside artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, will go on view next month at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair, courtesy of New York-based gallery P.P.O.W. The work is a fascinating statement about his Asian American heritage and includes a rare portrait of the artist's mother, Florence Wong Fie, and his stepfather, Benjamin Wong Fie."
"The painting elevates Chinese American history, adopting a classical Western three-panel altarpiece format. The central panel shows the couple, in poses directly echoing French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau's painting The Abduction of Psyche (1895). Benjamin takes the role of Cupid, wings spread, lifting a bespectacled Florence into the air. Behind them is a classic Chinatown scene with pagoda-style architecture, and three Chinese figures, two of them women holding fans, are at their feet."
Tai Ping Tien Kuo, painted in 1982, is a 12-foot-wide multipart work that centers on rare portraits of Florence Wong Fie and Benjamin Wong Fie. The central panel places the couple in poses referencing Bouguereau’s The Abduction of Psyche, with Benjamin portrayed as Cupid and Florence lifted aloft. The piece adopts a Western three-panel altarpiece format while incorporating Chinatown architecture and period Chinese figures. A scroll in the work reads Tai Ping Kuo, referencing the Taiping Rebellion. The painting was publicly shown once in 1987 and was withheld from further display because Florence objected to the nudity.
Read at ARTnews.com
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