Zao Wou-Ki

Has lived in Paris since 1948. Naturalised French citizen in 1964.

Born in Beijing in 1921, Zao Wou-Ki studied at Hangzhou National Academy of Art from 1935 to 1941 where he was educated in both traditional Chinese and modern Western styles; afterwards he taught there from 1941-1947. In 1948 he settled in Paris, where he attended the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere and soon began to meet other artists, including Hans Hartung, Joan Mitchell, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Vieira da Silva, and Pierre Soulages. By the late 1950s he had found his distinctive voice and vocabulary, having committed to an abstraction that combined traditional Chinese landscape painting and Western lyrical abstraction. After visiting New York in 1957 and becoming friends with the leading abstract expressionists, he produced bolder and more dramatic paintings with sweeping gestural brushstrokes and a greater richness of colour. He brought similar qualities to bear on his prints and on bold wash drawings. He became on of the leading exponents of lyrical abstraction of the "Ecole de Paris" in Europe. Zao Wou-Ki became a French citizen in 1964 and continues to live in Paris.

Zao Wou-Ki discovered the art and learned the technique of lithography at the Desjobert printing shop in Paris in 1949. His first lithographs were exhibited soon afterwards in 1950, and their development matched that of his paintings in their abandonment of all figuration. His work was an immediate success, and the lithographs helped to spread his influence. The 1960s were active years for the production of lithographs and illustrated books as Zao Wou-Ki illustrated works of poetry and books by writers such as Rene Char, Andre Malraux, Rimbaud and Roger Caillois. Working almost exclusively in fully colour, Zao Wou-Ki had produced 90 lithographs by 1974.