Whimsical Watercolorist

May 16, 2000
Dong Kingman, 89, Whimsical Watercolorist
By HOLLAND COTTER

Dong Kingman, an American-born watercolorist known for humorously illustrational cityscapes, magazine covers and contributions to Hollywood films, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.

Mr. Kingman was born in Oakland, Calif., in 1911. His father was a Chinese immigrant who worked as a laundryman and dry goods merchant. The family returned to Hong Kong when the artist was a child. There he studied traditional painting and calligraphy, as well as European styles, and worked briefly in an architectural drafting office and with a motion picture company. His early ambition was to direct films.

He returned to the United States during the Depression and supported his painting by working in his brother's factory and as a houseboy for a San Francisco family. After a successful first show of watercolors in 1933 he joined the Works Progress Administration for five years, while also teaching at the Academy of Advertising Art in San Francisco.

In 1940 the Metropolitan Museum of Art bought one of Mr. Kingman's paintings, and later two more. His New York solo debut was at Midtown Gallery in 1942. In the same year he was awarded the first of two Guggenheim Fellowships. After serving in the Army during World War II, he moved to New York, where taught at Columbia University and Hunter College, and at the Famous Artists School in Westport, Conn.

Mr. Kingman also showed with Wildenstein and Hammer galleries in New York, but magazines and films expanded his audience. He did many illustrations, including covers for Time, Life and Saturday Review.

His urban scenes have a cheery, gently humorous flavor, best sampled in a 40-foot rice-paper scroll that he created in 1954 while on a cultural exchange program sponsored by the State Department. The scroll was published in Life.

He also painted mood-setting scenes for films like ''Flower Drum Song'' (1961) and ''55 Days at Peking'' (1963), and was technical and promotional adviser for ''The World of Suzie Wong'' (1960). The paintings appeared in the films or were records of production. A 1997 book on Mr. Kingman is peppered with photographs of the artist posing beside Hollywood celebrities. This summer the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is organizing an exhibition of his film-related work.

In 1981 the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China arranged a show of his paintings in Beijing. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan organized ''40 Years of Watercolors by Dong Kingman'' in 1994; in 1999 a retrospective was organized by the Taichung Provincial Museum in Taiwan. Another retrospective is scheduled to tour in the United States in 2000-01.

Paintings by Mr. Kingman are owned by the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and are in private collections.

Mr. Kingman's first wife, Janice Wong, died in 1954. His second wife, Helena Kuo, died in 1999. He is survived by two sons, Dong Jr. of Manhattan and Eddie of Garden Grove, Calif.; four sisters, Sylvia Wong of Hong Kong, Esther Fong and Lily Tang of Sacramento, and Oi-Ying Ho of Malaysia; and four grandchildren.

Photos: Dong Kingman (Associated Press, 1984); Dong Kingman painted cheerful urban scenes, like ''Big Ben, London.'' (Midtown Gallery)