Please join us for a celebration of the work of two photographers with deep roots in San Francisco.  Charles Wong’s photo essays of Chinatown in the 1950s make a good starting point and the striking black and white work that both he and Irene Poon have done through the decades evoke much that is at once familiar and unique about the City and its populace, while ranging much wider as well.

A small selection of photos by Wong and Poon will remain on display at Bird & Beckett through the end of July.  Both have recent monographs available for sale as well – Wong’s Black & White/Sweet & Sour and Poon’s Point/Counterpoint.  Visit www.velvetlenscap.com for a preview of the work of both photographers.

Charles Wong was born in San Francisco in 1922.  After finishing high school he received a scholarship to the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) in 1940.  World War II interrupted, and Wong joined the Air Force. He returned to the California School of Fine Arts from 1949-1951 to study photography in the program newly founded by Ansel Adams. There he studied with Adams, Edward Weston, Minor White & Imogen Cunningham. Wong documented the Chinese community, as well as the larger world. Part one of these series, “Year of the Dragon” was featured in a 1952 edition of Aperture magazine.

Irene Poon was born in San Francisco in 1941.  She studied photography with Don Worth at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) where she received her Master of Arts degree in photography in 1967. Poon’s work has been shown in many venues including the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in 1968 and the San Francisco Museum of Art (now SFMOMA) in 1971.  She has been involved in many panel discussions & lectures concerning the Asian American experience.  Poon has curated and co-curated several exhibitions for the Chinese Historical Society of America where she served as a board director for three terms. Her photographic portraits of older Asian American artists were published in Leading the Way: Asian American Artists of the Older Generation, Gordon College 2001.