The sale dedicated to the Editions on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 will honour the Sino-French painter who died in April 2013.
The eldest of seven children, Zao Wou-ki is part of a very old family whose origins go back to the Song dynasty (11th-12th century). A very gifted student, passionate about literature, Wou-Ki began drawing and painting at the age of ten. His family encourages the boy in this direction.
In 1935, Zao Wou-Ki entered the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts at the age of fourteen after passing the entrance exam to draw a Greek statue from a casting. For six years he studied drawing from plasters and then models, oil painting, traditional Chinese painting by copying and perspective in the Western way and calligraphy.
Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013) Gravure 379 - 1994, (Agerup 379)
Estimate : 3500 / 4500 €
Zao Wou-Ki settles in the Montparnasse district, in a small workshop on rue du Moulin-Vert, next to Alberto Giacometti's. He learned French at the Alliance française, attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière where he studied with Émile Othon Friesz. A few years later, he would say that it was in Paris that he found his true personality. He obtained his French naturalization in 1964.
In contrast to his abstract work that made him famous from the late 1950s onwards, Zao Wou-ki's first paintings are realistic paintings in which portraits, still lifes or landscapes are depicted. But quickly, inspired by Paul Klee's work, he broke away from the mimetic relationship to reality and created abstract compositions. The lyrical power of a painting that becomes gestural then imposes itself. Halfway between the modernity of American abstract painting and the tradition of Chinese inks and calligraphy, Zao Wou-ki embodies a bridge between East and West.
Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013) Sans titre - 1963, (Agerup 154)
Estimate : 3000 / 5000 €
Published in a hundred copies, the three etchings offered for sale by PIASA are emblematic of an aesthetic where the material deposited on the surface becomes the vestige of a movement that is by definition ephemeral. They are offered with an estimate between 3000 and 5 000 euros.
The public's interest in it explains the recent success of the presentation of his work at the Museum of Modern Art of Paris.
Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013) Issue de La peau des choses - 1968, (Agerup 187)
Estimate : 3500 / 4000 €
