Zao Wou-Ki

Born in 1920 in Beijing (China) and died in 2013, Zao Wou-Ki learned from an early age to draw the characters of the Chinese alphabet, the basis of calligraphy. At the age of 15, he entered the Fine Arts School in Hangzhou (China). After becoming a teacher, he held his first solo exhibition, marked by the French influences of Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso, in 1941. In the late '40s, the cultural attaché of the French Embassy in China urged him to move to Paris, where he completed his art studies. Becoming friends with Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung, Sam Francis and Joan Mitchell, the Chinese artist surrounded himself with the greatest artists of his time. His discovery of lithography and abstraction in the 1950s marked a turning point in his career, as he "aimed for a new, imaginary and indecipherable form of writing". Today considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Zao Wou-Ki is exhibited in the greatest museums (Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris; Tate Museum, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York...) and, following his death, has his own room at the Bridgestone Museum of Art (Japan). Today, he achieves record sales at the most prestigious auction houses ($65 million, Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2018).