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The Arts Intel Report

Matthew Wong: Footprints in the Wind—Ink Drawings, 2013–2017

May 5 – Sept 11, 2021
23 E 67th St, New York, NY 10065, United States

In 2019, 35-year-old Matthew Wong, a Canadian painter, committed suicide. Two months later, Roberta Smith, the chief art critic of The New York Times, praised him as “one of the most talented painters of his generation.” Often compared to Van Gogh and Édouard Vuillard, Wong created striking landscapes in ebullient palettes that also, unfailingly, suggested complexity. This exhibition features 24 of his early ink drawings. Like Wong’s paintings, they harbor an indeterminate anguish, a tug of disquiet just below the surface. —E.C.

Matthew Wong, “The Watcher,” 2017 © 2021 Matthew Wong Foundation/Artists Rights Society, New York. Photo: Alex Yudzon/Cheim & Read, New York.