The Kites of Tyrus Wong by Tyrus Wong (黄齐耀). Exhibition at Malibu Arts and Culture.
Beloved for his lush pastels and natural imagery as lead artist on Disney Bambi, Tyrus Wong was a painter, muralist, lithographer, and kite maker who immigrated to the United States in 1920. Though recognized for his artistic talent, Wong nonetheless suffered discrimination in hiring and career opportunities due to his ethnicity under the Chinese Exclusion Act. His significant contributions to Disney were finally recognized in 2001, when he was inducted as a Disney Legend.
In his free time, Wong preserved his father’s kite-making hobby, beginning with dipping swallows and gradually accumulating over two hundred airy masterpieces, from a two-inch butterfly with thread as its kite line to a 52-segment centipede over 100 feet long. Patiently dedicated to his art, Wong shaved individual pieces of fine Japanese bamboo to achieve the perfect arc of his kites and searched for new materials in nylon and fiberglass for later works. In his retirement, Wong could be seen at the Santa Monica Pier on Saturdays, floating his whimsical creations over the water.
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