James Leong
The Art of James Leong
A Retrospective, Part I
January 2 - February 1, 2025
First Thursday: January 2, 5-9 pm
“The “Eurocentric” American in me painted the nature of the Northwest while the Chinese American began to paint ethnic images with the nature of the Chinese landscape.” - James Leong
Chatwin Arts is proud to present a major two-month, two-part retrospective from the estate of the Chinese-American artist James Leong. Part I of this landmark exhibition spans from the 1950s through the 1970s. It includes important, often viscerally angry early work (from his time in European exile), large-scale figurative works, classic Op Art, meditative geometric pieces, moody abstracts, and sensitive Chinese-influenced landscapes with lyrically beautiful surface textures. Part II (February) will include work from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Internationally known, Leong worked in Rome from 1958 to 1989, and in Seattle from 1990-2011.
Leong’s early work (from his Norwegian and Italian periods) reflects his statement that, “I was a very angry person but that anger was harnessed and expressed in painting.” As background to this, not only did he face violence and discrimination in his youth, but it has often been said that Leong’s European decades were essentially lived in exile. He said that there it was possible for him to just be an artist, not a Chinese artist, and not an American artist.
Born in San Francisco in 1929, Leong faced discrimination both in and out of the Chinese community coming out of the Great Depression. As a young artist, his mural depiction of the history of Chinese people in San Francisco famously caused an uproar in his own community because it was felt he portrayed the community unfairly. The Cold War added another layer of persecution, where stepping out of Chinatown exposed one to threats and violence. The threats erupted even more when Leong married a white woman at a time when anti-miscegenation laws frowned on such things.
Leong received a scholarship to study at California College of Arts and Crafts, where he achieved a BA and MFA. His study there was shaped by the California art scene, in particular the influences of Dong Kingman and Mark Tobey (who also lived and worked in Seattle). A Fulbright grant to study in Norway in 1956 rescued him from the difficulties of San Francisco’s post-war Chinatown. In Europe he soaked up myriad influences. In 1959 he was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation grant to live and work in Rome.
Leong and his wife, Dean, moved to Seattle in 1990. He was Seattle Arts Commissioner from 1994 to 1998, and on the advisory boards of the Museum of History and Industry, the Wing Luke Museum, and the International Examiner–all Seattle-based–from 1990 to 1997. He was nominated for the National Medal of Arts in 1997.
Chatwin Arts thanks Dean Leong for allowing the gallery to help share the work of this important artist.
To get away from the Asian community when I was young, you had to be gay or crazy to get far enough away to be not welcomed back. I was a very angry person but that anger was harnessed and expressed in painting. By choice the artist is a marginal person, a kind of outsider. I think that my personal experiences had given me the ability to cope with being a marginal person. It is something that few people understand. Most people want to belong.
I never really felt Chinese until I came to Seattle. It is so multicultural and you are not forced to take a stand. In one sense, it has made me feel more American than I felt before. But more important, there was no Chinese closet to come out of. I came back as a mature artist and the struggle of youth has been mitigated. My painting is purer. The problems are now aesthetic rather than cluttered with socioeconomic worries. Essentially, what has happened to me is that I no longer need to defend myself as a visual artist. Seattle provides the comfort of landscape, natural beauty, and the physical freedom to work on my own. (Ian Findlay, Asian Art News, Nov/Dec 1994)
