Born in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China, in 1928, Xiongquan Ding, better known as Walasse Ting was an artist renowned for his vibrant and colorful depictions of women, animals, flowers, and other elements of nature. He briefly studied at the Shanghai College of Fine Arts in the 1940s before leaving China in 1946 for Hong Kong, where he exhibited watercolors in local bookstores. In 1950, Ting sailed to France and settled in Paris, arriving penniless and without connections.
There, he lived as a struggling artist for six years, immersing himself in the city’s rich art scene and absorbing the influence of Western Expressionism and masters like Picasso. A pivotal figure in his early Paris years was Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky, who discovered Ting living in humble conditions and became a lifelong friend.

In 1953, Ting became associated with the avant-garde CoBrA group in Paris. By 1957, he moved to New York at the height of the Abstract Expressionist movement, befriending American artist Sam Francis. This period marked a shift in his style, incorporating bold, dripping brushstrokes influenced by Abstract Expressionism and later Pop Art. Unlike in Paris, New York offered him opportunities to paint and sell his work. 

In 1964, Ting published One Cent Life, a collaborative book featuring lithographs by twenty-eight leading European and American artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Joan Mitchell. The project was edited by Sam Francis and published by E.W. Kornfeld.

By the 1970s, Ting developed the distinctive style he is best known for today, using Chinese calligraphic brushstrokes to define forms and filling them with bright, flat acrylic colors. His works radiate freshness, vitality, and brilliant color, capturing a magical and seductive world full of sensory pleasure. Common subjects include women, cats, fish, horses, flowers, and watermelons, often painted on rice paper with energetic ink brushwork layered beneath vivid acrylics.

Throughout his life, Ting divided his time between New York and Amsterdam, and like Gauguin, he often traveled to Tahiti in search of exotic colors that deeply inspired his palette.

In 1977, he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for his drawings, recognizing his contribution to contemporary art. Sadly, after suffering a severe brain hemorrhage in 2002, Ting was no longer able to continue his artistic practice. He passed away in 2010 in New York at the age of 80.

To explore additional works by Walasse Ting, please get in touch with the gallery.