Matthew Wong (Chinese: 王俊傑;[1] March 8, 1984 – October 2, 2019) was a Canadian artist. Self-taught as a painter, Wong received critical acclaim for his work before his death in 2019 at the age of 35.[2][3][4]Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic at The New York Times, has praised Wong as "one of the most talented painters of his generation."[5]
Wong's creative work began with experiments with photography in 2009 and continued during his time as a student of photography at City University in Hong Kong. Unsatisfied with the idea of becoming a photographer, in 2014 Wong told Neoteric Magazine that "towards the end of my degree I felt I had gained no real skills or prospects that could take me forward in the professional world."[11][12] In 2012 he began experimenting with drawing.[8] He began painting landscapes in 2014.[8][9][12][13]
In 2016 he returned to Canada, settling in Edmonton.[8][12] Wong posted his paintings to Facebook and attracted the attention of Matthew Higgs, curator and director of White Columns Gallery.[12] Wong attained his first institutional recognition when the Dallas Museum of Art acquired his work, The West, in 2017. The DMA was the only museum to acquire a painting by Wong during his lifetime.[14] Wong went on to exhibit at galleries in New York and Hong Kong. Critic Jerry Saltz called Wong's 2018 solo exhibition at Karma Gallery “one of the most impressive solo New York debuts I’ve seen in a while.”[12]
Due to their scarcity in the open market, Wong's works have attracted interest on the auction market. His Edmonton studio remains untouched.[15]
Solo exhibitions and retrospectives
2024 Matthew Wong | Vincent van Gogh: Painting as a Last Resort, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam[16]
In 2020, a small watercolor on paper simply called Untitled was sold for four times its original estimate price after attracting a number of bids.[30][31] His first large painting available in an auction, The Realm of Appearances, was sold in July 2020 for US$1.82 million, twenty times its original estimate.[32][33] In December 2020, a painting called River at Dusk was sold for $4.86M, four times its original estimate.[34]
