Zao Wou-Ki

Zao Wou-Ki was born in Beijing in 1921. He grew up in a distinguished family with roots tracing back to the Song Dynasty, fostering a deep familiarity with traditional Chinese culture from an early age. His early education in calligraphy greatly influenced his later artistic expression.

In 1935, he enrolled in the National School of Fine Arts in Hangzhou (now the China Academy of Art), where he studied both Chinese and Western painting. There, he acquired the spirit of Song Dynasty painting as well as European painting techniques such as drawing, oil painting, and perspective. This experience of absorbing two distinct art cultures, Eastern and Western, simultaneously, became the foundation for his unique artistic world.

In 1948, at the age of 27, he moved to France and settled in Montparnasse, Paris. Immersed in the post-war Parisian avant-garde art scene, he was inspired by Paul Klee and the trends in abstract painting, gradually moving away from figurative expression and progressing toward his own abstract world.

From the 1950s onward, Zao Wou-Ki achieved lyrical abstraction that evokes light, space, presence, and the energy of nature. His canvases show brushstrokes reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy, but rather than mere Orientalism, they establish a unique visual language highly integrated with Western abstract painting.

Working with a wide range of techniques including oil painting, printmaking, and ink wash, he consistently sought to depict the "breathing of space." Color was not used to reproduce landscapes, but to evoke the viewer's sensations and inner memories.

In 1964, he acquired French nationality, and in 2002, he was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

In 2013, he passed away in Nyon, Switzerland. His remains are interred in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Zao Wou-Ki is considered one of the leading figures in post-war art, having achieved a high-level fusion of the spirit of Chinese painting and 20th-century Western abstract painting. His works continue to be highly acclaimed worldwide today.