Painter, printmaker, and poet Walasse Ting was born in Wuxi, China, on October 13, 1929. He briefly attended the Shanghai Art Academy, but always considered himself to be self-taught, learning to draw with chalk on the street at a young age. In 1952, he immigrated to Paris and became associated with the avant-garde group CoBrA. In 1958, he settled in New York during the height of the Abstract Expressionist and Pop Art movements. His work began to transition from black and white abstractions reminiscent of Zao Wou-ki, to boldly colored figurative works blending calligraphic brushstrokes with splatters, splashes, and bright fields of color. His widely collected series of female nudes exemplify his embrace of this decidedly Western, vivid coloration.

He befriended Sam Francis, who in 1964 encouraged Ting to study at the relatively new Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles. There, he published two lithography suites, Fortune Kookie and Hollywood Honeymoon. That same year, Francis helped publish 1 Cent Life, a book of Walasse's poetry illustrated by artists such as Karel Appel, Jim Dine, Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchell, and Francis, among others. Walasse was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for drawing in 1970. Toward the end of his life, Walasse split his time between New York and Amsterdam. His works can be found in many museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Tate Modern, and Centre Pompidou.

Ting's legacy in the American art world is in fact an international and multi-genre one, with his work in the Parisian avant-garde scne, the aesthetics of his Chinese upbringing, and his attraction to American Pop Art. Despite a storied and widely-appreciated presence and body of work in Paris, New York City, Los Angeles, and other major hubs of American creativity, recognition of his art waned with his failing health and death, and for many years was primarily known for the 1 Cent Life portfolio. Recent major exhibitions have revived interest in Walasse Ting, however. Among these was a major retrospectives at Art in Space, Hong Kong (Walasse Ting: Summer Sunshine, 2025); Alison Fine Arts, New York City (Walasse Ting: New York, New York, 2023-2024), Fort Lauderdale's NSU Museum of Art (Walasse Ting: Parrot Jungle, 2023-2024); and Catto Gallery, London (2017).

Wallasse Ting passed away in New York on May 17, 2010, seven years after a stroke left him incapacitated.