Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné (original) (raw)
From the Martin Wong Foundation
Untitled (Self-portrait), ca. 1974–75.
The Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné is a free online resource featuring the paintings, drawings, poetry, and ceramics of artist Martin Wong (1946–99)
In addition to detailed records of over 800 works of art, the project features new essays by scholars and curators, a comprehensive illustrated chronology, and a wealth of primary source material including revealing interviews, a 1991 recording of Wong speaking about his work, and a film portrait from the last decade of his life.
Chinatown Dragon, 1993.
A collaboration between Stanford Libraries, the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) and the Martin Wong Foundation
The Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné (MWCR) is the inaugural research project of the Asian American Art Initiative. Based at Cantor Arts Center, the AAAI is dedicated to the collection, preservation, research, teaching, and public presentation of Asian American/diaspora artists and makers.
The Martin Wong Foundation (MWF) was founded in 2003 by the artist’s mother, family, and friends to provide scholarships for art students at selected universities and to promote the artist’s legacy. The MWF made available its archival resources to enable an incomparably intimate and rich portrait of the artist and his work.
Stanford Libraries completes the partnership triad, by providing resources and support in the form of staff expertise in metadata, digital preservation, software development, and project and service management. The Spotlight at Stanford platform, an open source application created by Stanford Libraries software developers, serves as the foundation for the customized presentation of the diverse digital assets in the MWCR.
About Martin Wong
Raised in San Francisco and educated in California, Martin Wong came of age during the heyday of the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s. He relocated to New York City in 1978 where he soon began exhibiting widely and quickly became a leading figure of the 1980s downtown arts scene. He was diagnosed with AIDS and returned to San Francisco in 1994 before his death at age 53. His work has been the subject of multiple solo retrospective exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of museums including Chicago Art Institute, M+ Museum in Hong Kong, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Yale University Art Gallery. P.P.O.W began exhibiting Wong’s artwork in the early ’90s and continue to be the primary gallery representing his works today.
Martin Wong's valuable archives are held by the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University. The Martin Wong Papers date from 1982 to 1999 and contain Wong's artwork, including sketches, drawings, and graffiti, as well as correspondence, poetry, prose, and source material that informed his artwork.
Sweet Enuff, 1987.
About the Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné
The Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné is a free digital resource that is aimed at both researchers and the general public. The project also provides access to a range of archival resources, including unpublished interviews, exhibition documentation, and hundreds of new high-resolution, zoomable images of works. Other highlights of the digital format include an ability to sort by thematic topics, series, or location; grouping by date or exhibition; and links to archival images. The catalogue should be seen as a work in progress, which will be updated periodically as more information becomes available.
Content Warning
Martin Wong’s work draws on a wide range of source material, including racist kitsch figurines, Nazi paraphernalia, overtly sexual images, and other images that might be seen today as ableist, offensive, or discriminatory. The editorial team has consulted community members about the best ways to describe these aspects of Wong’s sources. We hope that presenting Wong’s oeuvre in full will help researchers understand the complexities of his practice.