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Ng continued designing for Taylor & Ng from his home studio into the mid-1980s.
He was diagnosed with HIV in 1982 but remained active. For a feature about fitness in 1985, the Chronicle photographed Ng hanging upside down like a bat, showing off his gravity boots that hooked to the ceiling.
"Standing on cement floors and slouching over a drawing board turns me into an ape," Ng said, explaining the value of the gravity-boot stretching.
While Taylor & Ng never marketed itself as gay themed, attendees at trade shows may have picked up something San Franciscan about the 15 or so company designers who minded the booth.
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"They were probably 15 of the most gorgeous men in San Francisco at the time," Manglicmot says. "Without really pushing the idea of gay, they set up this whole precedent of very handsome men at the trade show showing significant products.
"They were all designers, and unfortunately a lot of them died during the AIDS epidemic. Win wasn't the only one that we lost at that point.
"That had a lot to do with the whole dismantling of Taylor & Ng."
Natalie Ng says Win continued creating art almost until his death, in 1991 at age 55.
Ng's sense of humor and newfound spirituality made him happy even as he declined, Mimi Hicks says. He adopted a Taoist-Buddhist philosophy, she says, recalling a visit to Win's hospital room, where she spotted a Christian minister exiting.
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"'I thought you became Taoist,' I said," Mimi recalls. Her brother's reply: "At this point, I need all the blessings I can get."
"He was very calm and accepting," says Mimi. "He said, 'I've had a great life, and I don't regret anything.'"
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• Win Ng's art is in several museum collections (and sometimes on display), including at San Francisco MOMA, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Crocker Museum in Sacramento. Murals by Ng can be seen at the Orinda BART Station and the Maxine Hall Health Center in San Francisco. Taylor & Ng, which continues today as a much smaller firm, sells many of Ng's creations online.
Photography: G.F. Burchard; and courtesy Allen and Katherine Ng Hicks, Frances and Herman Ng, Foster Gwin Gallery, De Young Museum, S. Wolpers / Kultur Vintage