Born in Beijing in 1920 to a family of Song imperial descendant, Zao Wou-ki grew up in Dantu, Jiangsu Province and spent his childhood learning calligraphy and Chinese literati traditions. Zao’s father was an amateur painter and his grandfather a former naval gunner of the late Qing Dynasty and a devoted Daoist disciple. Since Zao was still a child, the Daoist thoughts, a theme that would permeate throughout his oeuvre, had been rooted in his mind when he just started exploring the world of art. Enthralled by both Chinese literati paintings and European modern art that he saw on the postcards his uncle brought back from Paris, Zao showed great talents for painting at a very young age. In 1935, he started his study in National School of Fine
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At the end of the year, his discovery of Desjobert Printing Studio evoked his interest in color lithography and etching. Under the guidance of Johnny Friedlander, Zao learned basic skills of printmaking and soon began to experiment with unconventional processes in which he created painterly qualities in his prints. Fascinated by Zao’s prints, poet Henri Michaux wrote several poems as comments for the prints and became Zao’s lifelong friend. From 1950 to 1952, Zao went on a tour throughout France and other European countries, during which his works were mostly compositions of landscapes that were simplified and reduced to only geometric frameworks. After 1953, the figurative elements in his works gradually disappeared and turned into pure abstract signs he invented himself. In 1957 Zao visited his brother who lived in New Jersey and he met with abstract expressionism artists in New York. Affected by the straightforwardness he saw in American paintings, Zao began to paint in broader and more fluid brushstrokes on larger surfaces after he returned to Paris in 1958. Since then the invented signs in his paintings disintegrated into deliberate arrangement of light and space composed by color masses and lines which he stated was inspired by his rediscovery of Chinese landscape paintings. Zao became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2002. He died at his home in Switzerland in
At the end of the year, his discovery of Desjobert Printing Studio evoked his interest in color lithography and etching. Under the guidance of Johnny Friedlander, Zao learned basic skills of printmaking and soon began to experiment with unconventional processes in which he created painterly qualities in his prints. Fascinated by Zao’s prints, poet Henri Michaux wrote several poems as comments for the prints and became Zao’s lifelong friend. From 1950 to 1952, Zao went on a tour throughout France and other European countries, during which his works were mostly compositions of landscapes that were simplified and reduced to only geometric frameworks. After 1953, the figurative elements in his works gradually disappeared and turned into pure abstract signs he invented himself. In 1957 Zao visited his brother who lived in New Jersey and he met with abstract expressionism artists in New York. Affected by the straightforwardness he saw in American paintings, Zao began to paint in broader and more fluid brushstrokes on larger surfaces after he returned to Paris in 1958. Since then the invented signs in his paintings disintegrated into deliberate arrangement of light and space composed by color masses and lines which he stated was inspired by his rediscovery of Chinese landscape paintings. Zao became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2002. He died at his home in Switzerland in