Zao Wou-Ki
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Artist Spotlight
Zao Wou-Ki: Where Two Worlds Become One
In November 2018, a single canvas by Zao Wou Ki shattered expectations at Sotheby's Hong Kong, when his monumental triptych 'Juin Octobre 1985' sold for HK$510 million, equivalent to roughly US$65 million, making it the most expensive work ever sold by an Asian artist at auction at that time. The room, by all accounts, was electric. It was a moment that confirmed what devoted collectors and museum curators had known for decades: that Zao Wou Ki occupies a singular, irreplaceable position in the history of modern art. His work belongs to no single country and no single tradition. It belongs,… Continue reading
Artists in conversation
Hans Hartung
Hartung shared Zao Wou-Ki's commitment to lyrical abstraction and gestural mark making, blending European modernism with an intuitive calligraphic energy that produces similarly dynamic and atmospheric compositions.
Pierre Soulages
Soulages pursued a deeply meditative and gestural abstract painting practice rooted in the expressive potential of broad brushwork, paralleling Zao Wou-Ki's synthesis of lyrical abstraction with a sense of vast spatial and tonal depth.
Mark Tobey
Tobey integrated Eastern calligraphic traditions into Western abstract painting, producing luminous and rhythmic surfaces that closely resemble the poetic fusion of Chinese brush culture and Abstract Expressionism central to Zao Wou-Ki's work.
Artists who inspired them
Paul Klee
Zao Wou-Ki encountered Klee's work early in his move to Paris and was deeply moved by Klee's ability to fuse symbolic pictographic marks with poetic abstraction, directly shaping Zao's transition away from figuration.
Henri Matisse
Matisse's luminous use of color and fluid compositional freedom were formative influences on Zao Wou-Ki during his years in Paris, informing the chromatic lyricism and serene spatial openness that characterize his mature canvases.
Nicolas de Staël
De Staël's richly layered and tonally resonant abstract surfaces influenced Zao Wou-Ki's evolving approach to paint handling and atmospheric depth within the vibrant Parisian avant garde milieu they both inhabited.
