Sidewalk Superintendent

Eleven years ago Dong Kingman confessed that he often dreamed of Hong Kong, his boyhood home, and that he would like to go back and "see if the dream is right." An around-the-world lecture tour sponsored by the State Department gave Artist Kingman his first opportunity, and increasing financial success has enabled him to repeat parts of the trip each year with his pretty wife. While his wife saw the sights, Kingman sat painting waterfronts in Hong Kong, sidewalk scenes in Rome, Paris and London. The fruits of his fun, on view at Manhattan's Wildenstein Gallery this week, were very like happy dreams: luminous, lighthearted, and full of surprising juxtapositions.

Even in a boom season. Kingman's success is phenomenal. A London exhibition last fall delighted the critics, and a Paris show is planned for the spring. With works in 30-odd American museums and a minimum guarantee from his gallery, Kingman sits on top of the world. Capping his pleasure is the fact that there have been times when the world seemed to be sitting on top of him. The son of a Chinese store owner, he studied painting in Hong Kong, moved to the U.S. at 18, worked as a houseboy, cook and factory hand. The WPA art program started him on his long, steep climb from the gaudy obscurity of San Francisco's Chinatown.

Passionately fond of city life, Kingman now lives in the heart of Manhattan, constantly prowls its streets with sketch pad in hand. "I feel I am learning to draw," he says with his habitual smile of polite delight. "Maybe when I get to be an old man and can't get around so well, I'll be able to do more things from imagination."

Actually, Kingman uses his imagination to people his real scenes with creatures never seen on land or sea, some grass-high and others building-high. "A big man," says Kingman, who is 5 ft. 1 in., "perhaps doesn't notice so much difference between large and small. I like to paint people at different levels, and sometimes with wheels under them so they can move about more quickly." He also uses giant faces, single eyes, fantastic animals, and meaningless signs to fill odd corners of his designs with elusive life. This week's show offered, amidst a host of similar fantasies, people on unicycles carrying dumbbells. The dumbbells. Kingman airily explained, "give weight to my painting." Turning serious, he added: "I'm disappointed when people take my work too seriously."

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