(Beijing 1921–2013 Nyon, Switzerland)
Untitled, 1953, signed and dated 53, watercolour and ink on paper, 52.5 x 35.1 cm, framed

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the Foundation Zao Wou-Ki and will be included in the catalogue raisonné of works on paper.

Provenance:
Private Collection, Switzerland –
acquired by the parents of the present owner in Paris in the 1950s

Zao Wou-ki is considered one of the first transcultural painters of the 20th century. He developed his specific abstract style by combining the visual poetry of Chinese painting and calligraphy with modern Western pictorial traditions. His works are now in over 150 public collections in more than 20 countries, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Louvre and the Tate Modern.

Born in 1920 into an old scholarly family in Beijing, Zao completed his education at the National Academy of Art in Hangzhou. In 1948, he moved to Paris, where he settled in Montparnasse and over the following years became friends with André Malraux, Sam Francis, Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti. While in the 1950s his work was representative of lyrical abstraction and the Nouvelle École de Paris art movements, from the mid-1960s onwards he developed an increasingly expressive form of abstraction, characterised by exploding colours and gestural brushstrokes inspired by Chinese writing.

The present work on paper is one of Zao’s early pieces. It shows a vase with a bouquet of twigs, berries and peacock feathers that combines plant shapes and fantastic forms. The delicate lines that denote the branches seem at the same time to take on a life of their own and oscillate between representation, ornament and abstraction. The depiction captivates the viewer through a virtuosic interplay between the cobweb-like interwoven lines and the numerous small dabs of ink, that, like stringed pearl necklaces, set colourful accents. On the one hand, the symbolic lines, the elementary forms and the flat pictorial space are reminiscent of the work of Paul Klee, who was one of the formative influences on Zao at the time. On the other hand, the calligraphic signature also shows the artist’s continuous rootedness in Chinese tradition.

“While often paying homage, in their work, to their esteemed forebears, Zao and his contemporaries forged a new aesthetic by harnessing the calligraphic stroke to construct their images. This adaption of the traditional genre provided a distinct approach toward abstracting the natural world and served to push the limits of representing pure form. These developments were instrumental to the creation of an internationally recognizable aesthetic style. What sets Zao’s practice apart from those of his peers is his formative exposure to Asian aesthetics, which provided the artist with a singular perspective that combined Eastern and Western artistic traditions. Zao’s unique contributions to the establishment of modern abstraction merits a position among his European and American contemporaries as a pioneer within the canon of twentieth-century art and opens a discourse on the need to identify other artistic practices yet to be studied that have made significant contributions to the development of postwar abstraction.”

Michelle Yun, “Zao Wou-Ki and the Avant-Garde”, in: No Limits. Zao Wou-Ki, exhibition catalogue, Asia Society Museum, New York, Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, Yale University Press, 2017, p. 43.