Wou-ki ZAO

Zao Wou-Ki: Life, Lithographs, Etchings and Original Prints

Painter of light and space, Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013) brought the ink-and-brush culture of China into the heart of post-war Paris. Born in Beijing and settled in France from 1948, he became one of the leading figures of the School of Paris and Lyrical Abstraction, admired for untitled canvases in which colour seems to breathe. Less widely known is his remarkable output as a printmaker: lithographs and etchings were among the very first works he made in Paris, and he kept returning to the print studio for more than fifty years.

At its Paris galleries, Le Coin des Arts offers original lithographs and etchings with aquatint by Zao Wou-Ki, including plates from illustrated books such as Canto pisan and Beauregard, and occasionally works on paper and ceramics. Each sheet is chosen for the quality of its impression, its provenance and its condition.

A Scholar’s Son in Beijing and Hangzhou

Zao Wou-Ki was born in Beijing in 1920 into a cultivated family whose collection included old Song-dynasty paintings, and he practised calligraphy as a child. At fourteen he enrolled at the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts (now the China Academy of Art), studying for six years under Lin Fengmian and Wu Dayu, who taught both traditional Chinese painting and Western oil technique. After graduating he taught at the school himself and exhibited in Chongqing and Shanghai.

Montparnasse and a Poet’s Friendship

He reached Paris on 1 April 1948 with his first wife, Xie Jinglan (Lalan), took a studio in Montparnasse, learnt French at the Alliance Française and attended Othon Friesz’s classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Alberto Giacometti was a studio neighbour, and his circle soon included Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Nicolas de Staël, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Sam Francis.

In 1949 he was introduced to lithography at the Desjobert printing works. When the poet Henri Michaux saw the results, he responded with a series of texts, published in 1950 by Euros and R. J. Godet as Lecture par Henri Michaux de huit lithographies de Zao Wou-Ki. A copy of this book is held by the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Michaux, a lifelong friend, introduced him to the dealer Pierre Loeb, who represented him from 1950 to 1957.

Abstraction and International Recognition

Seeing the work of Paul Klee in Switzerland, where his prints were shown in Bern, opened a new path: his landscapes filled with signs recalling ancient Chinese script, and by the mid-1950s figuration had dissolved altogether. British audiences saw his work early, in London shows from the early 1950s and at the Redfern Gallery in 1963. Tate holds his canvas Before the Storm (1955), painted at that turning point.

In 1957 he travelled to the United States, then on to Japan and Hong Kong, where he married the actress Chan May-Kan. That year he joined the Galerie de France in Paris, while Samuel Kootz took him on in New York. From 1958 he stopped titling his pictures, naming them only by the date of completion, such as 29.01.64. The Venice Biennale (1960) and a retrospective at the Museum Folkwang in Essen (1965) confirmed his standing.

A French Citizen and a Return to Ink

With the support of André Malraux, whose La Tentation de l’Occident he illustrated in 1962, Zao Wou-Ki became a French citizen in 1964. After May’s death in 1972 he went back to China for the first time since 1948 and, at Michaux’s urging, took up Chinese ink again. His later life was shared with Françoise Marquet, a curator with the City of Paris museums, who became his wife; the vast triptychs of these years include an Hommage à André Malraux.

Major honours followed: a retrospective at the Grand Palais in 1981, the Praemium Imperiale in 1994, a show at the Jeu de Paume in 2003 and election to the Académie des beaux-arts in 2002. He died at Nyon, Switzerland, on 9 April 2013 and is buried in Montparnasse cemetery. The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris paid tribute to him in 2018 with L’espace est silence.

Zao Wou-Ki as a Printmaker

Printmaking ran through his career until 2000, when he gave up engraving. The early lithographs pulled at Desjobert are lyrical landscapes drawn with a light, calligraphic line. From the 1960s onwards he turned increasingly to intaglio: etching and, above all, aquatint, whose tonal grain allowed him to reproduce on copper the washes and luminous depths of his painting. His plates were printed in leading Paris workshops, among them Lacourière et Frélaut.

Livres d’artiste were central to this work. Beyond Michaux, he partnered René Char, Saint-John Perse, Rimbaud, Malraux and Philippe Jaccottet, whose Beauregard (1981) contains etchings with aquatint. For Ezra Pound’s Canto pisan (1972) he produced a suite of colour etchings and aquatints. Single sheets include the lithograph Hommage à Nobutaka Shikanai (1991), and in 1992 he contributed to the Olympic Centennial Suite alongside Chillida, Tàpies and Chu Teh-Chun.

The Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints

A first catalogue of his etchings and lithographs was published in Bern by Nesto Jacometti as early as 1955, followed by Zao Wou-Ki, les estampes 1937-1974 (1975, with a text by Roger Caillois). The standard reference today is Jørgen Ågerup, Zao Wou-Ki. The Graphic Work. A Catalogue Raisonné 1937-1995 (Copenhagen, Heede & Moestrup, 1994), with a supplement covering 1995-2000; prints are cited as “Ågerup no.” (often spelt “Agerup”). Paintings and unique works are documented by the Fondation Zao Wou-Ki, chaired by Françoise Marquet-Zao, which is preparing the catalogue raisonné with Yann Hendgen.

Buying an Original Print by Zao Wou-Ki

His prints offer a realistic way into the work of an artist whose oils now set records for modern Asian painting. Before buying, check the technique (lithograph, etching, aquatint), the print run and its annotation (numbered, artist’s proof, hors commerce), whether the sheet is pencil-signed, the Ågerup reference, the publisher and printer, whether it comes from a book or suite, its provenance and the state of the paper (light-staining, foxing, margins).

Original or reproduction? Exhibition posters and reproductions “after” Zao Wou-Ki are common and are sometimes sold as lithographs. An original print was conceived by the artist for the medium, printed in a limited edition and recorded in the catalogue raisonné. Plates from illustrated books are not always individually signed; what matters then is precise identification of the book and its edition.

Discover Zao Wou-Ki at Le Coin des Arts

Le Coin des Arts selects Zao Wou-Ki’s prints with close attention to authenticity, catalogue references and condition, and can advise on conservation framing and mounts for works on paper. Browse our engravings and lithographs and the prints of his contemporaries: Chu Teh-Chun, his fellow student in Hangzhou, Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Nicolas de Staël.

Sources and references

Wikipedia – Zao Wou-Ki · Tate – Zao Wou-ki · Victoria and Albert Museum – Lecture par Henri Michaux · Asianart.com – biography and exhibitions · M+ Magazine – Zao Wou-Ki · Jørgen Ågerup, Zao Wou-Ki. The Graphic Work. A Catalogue Raisonné 1937-1995, Copenhagen, 1994.