Born in Hong Kong in 1954, Josephine Cheung Shuk-fong died in 1989 just as she was starting to make a mark on the art world. The painter grew up in Sheung Shui, then a rural part of the city, and died in Toronto, Canada, from lung cancer at the age of 35.
Cheung moved to Canada in the 1970s and spent the rest of her short life there, apart from a year in New York.
The paintings she left behind either went into storage at her husbandโs Montreal gallery or were sold privately, while others were kept at her familyโs home in Toronto. They disappeared from view completely.
That changed in June, when Alisan Fine Artsโ New York gallery held a commemorative exhibition of Cheungโs works that blend abstract expressionism and figurative painting.
Behind the exhibition is a moving story of a loyal friendโs tireless campaign to restore Cheungโs place in art history.
Hong Kong-born Nancy Mei-yu Tong is a New York-based documentary filmmaker.