Dong Kingman

Art Brokerage: Dong Kingman Chinese-American Artist: b. 1911-2000. Dong Kingman (31 March 1911 – 12 May 2000) was a Chinese American artist and one of America's leading watercolor masters. As a painter on the forefront of the California Style School of painting, he was known for his urban and landscape paintings, as well as his graphic design work in the Hollywood film industry. He has won widespread critical acclaim and his works are included in over 50 public and private collections worldwide, including Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brooklyn Museum; deYoung Museum and Art Institute, Chicago. Dong Kingman was born Dong Moy Shu in Oakland, California, the son of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. Kingman continued his education at the Chan Sun Wen School, where he excelled at calligraphy and watercolor painting. He studied under Szeto Wai, the Paris-trained head of the Lingnan Academy. It was under Szeto's instruction that Kingman was first exposed to Northern European trends. Kingman would later state that Szeto was his "first and only true influence." His critical breakthrough occurred in 1936, when he gained a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Art Association. This exhibition brought him national recognition and success. In the late 1930s, Kingman served as an artist in the Works Progress Administration, painting over 300 works with the relief program. In 1942 and 1944, Kingman received the Guggenheim Fellowship. During World War II, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, but was transferred to work as a map artist in the Office of Strategic Services at Camp Beal, California and Washington, D.C, by a fan of his work, Eleanor Roosevelt. During the 1950s, Kingman served as a United States cultural ambassador and international lecturer for the Department of State. In the 1950s and 1960s, Kingman worked as an illustrator in the film industry, designing the backgrounds for a number of major motion pictures including "55 Days at Peking", The Sand Pebbles and the Hollywood adaptation of "Flower Drum Song". Over 300 of his film-related works are permanently housed at the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California. Dong Kingman died of pancreatic cancer in his home in New York City in 2000, at age 89. Listings wanted.