Medical Arts

The Art of Kenny Wong

By F. Scott Chilcott, MD

Kenny Wong was a wonderful general practitioner in Santa Rosa from 1957 to 1986. He was a very quiet, shy man. I best got acquainted with Kenny in the operating room when I was doing anesthesia for him. He was most impressive in his surgical skill, never a false move, always gentle with the tissue, never seemed to be in a hurry but used less time for most procedures than the rest of us. It was readily apparent that his hand-eye coordination was most unusual.

When I say quiet, I mean quiet! I think few of us were aware of his artistic talent or his sense of humor until we began seeing his work in the medical society’s monthly Bulletin. It was not uncommon to hear someone in the doctors’ dining room say, with a big smile on their face, “I wonder who Kenny will nail this month.”

In addition to the examples of his work shown here, there is a gallery of portraits of Santa Rosa physicians on display in Conference Room One at Sutter Medical Center. Well worth a visit. Also, his carving of Washington crossing the Delaware is something to behold.
If Kenny were here now, I can think of a number of characters in our present medical community that he would have great fun with. Just look around, maybe even in a mirror.

Washington Crossing the Delaware. In 1955, while serving as a medical officer for the Coast Guard, Dr. Wong purchased a 2-foot by 3-foot slab of Honduras mahogany and began carving a replica of “Washington Crossing the Delaware," the famous painting by Emanuel Leutze. Wong completed the work two decades later, just in time for the nation’s 1976 Bicentennial celebration. During that year, the carving was displayed in the lobby of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC.

What—Me Worry? Dr. Wong’s cover for the April 1970 issue of the Bulletin pictured a bemused Dr. Alfred E. Newman struggling with the Medicare bureaucracy. (Drawing colorized by Steve Graydon.)

Flower Children. In 1968, with the San Francisco Bay Area awash in flower children, Dr. Wong depicted two winners of the magazine’s “Hippie” awards: Dr. Louis Menachof and Dr. Charles Peck.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In the February 1968 issue of the Bulletin, Dr. Wong poked fun at a pair of local physicians who seemed inseparable: Dr. William Rogers and Dr. Thomas Torgerson.

House Call a la Huntington. In this undated drawing, Dr. Wong paid homage to colleague Dr. Robert Huntington, well known for his house calls.

Dr. Harding Clegg tries a different approach for a crying baby.

Dr. Kenneth Wong’s 1971 vision of futuristic medical care at the Sonoma County Regional Federal Disease Control Center.

An undated oil painting by Dr. Kenneth Wong.

Sonoma Medicine, Volume 57, Number 2 (Spring 2006).