As the eldest son of a successful banker, Zao Wou-ki did not have any interest in taking over the family business. Instead, his passion for art led him to enroll in the Hangzhou National Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1941 after completing a 6-year training programme. Although retained by Lin Fengmian to stay on as an assistant teacher, Zao remained inspired by artists such as Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse, and continued to foster a fascination in Western art through Parisian post cards from his uncle or reproductions of artworks published in American magazines bought from the French Concession.

 

Unlike Chinese artists before him, who were expected to return and cultivate the future generations of the nation after studying abroad, Zao sought to fully immerse himself in Europe to further his personal artistic development. With his father’s blessing, the young artist began his journey in 1948 with his eyes set on Paris, passing through multiple cities before arriving in the French capital. On the first day of his arrival, Zao’s visit to the Louvre finally allowed him to encounter in person the works of art titans that he had only ever seen in books or magazines. As his determination to seek recognition as an artist with no geographical labels grew, he would come to befriend other Paris émigrés including Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung, Joan Mitchell, and Sam Francis as he occupied a small studio in the creative district of Montparnasse.

 

“Although the influence of Paris is undeniable in all my training as an artist, I also wish to say that I have gradually rediscovered China. […] Paradoxically, perhaps, it is to Paris that I owe this return to my deepest origins.”
— Zao Wou-Ki

 

Initially planning to only stay in the capital for two years, Zao’s voyage to France would eventually become a permanent residency. Unlike many contemporaries who struggled to make a name for themselves, the innovative liberties and artistic spirit of the vibrant city of Paris gave the artist the freedom to create and to develop an artistic language truly of his own. Inspired by like-minded peers who also identified with multiple cultures, Zao began to experiment with a variety of mediums such as oil painting and took a holistic approach in incorporating Chinese traditions and post-war Western influences into his art.

 

In 1951, Zao stumbled upon the works of Paul Klee in Switzerland during his tour of Europe, with its expressive colours and musical sensibilities resonating. This encounter marked the beginning of the artist’s transition into abstraction, coinciding with the re-incorporation of bold Chinese influences into his work by the mid-1950s which saw the emergence of his Oracle Bone period inspired from ancient hieroglyphic scripts. By the time his Hurricane Period began in 1959, a time that was widely-recognised as his creative peak, his grand and majestic style synthesising Chinese and Western styles as well as ancient and modern elements had garnered substantial acclaim across Europe and in the United States.

 

 

A Physical Portrayal of Serenity

 

“I want to paint invisible things: the breath of life, wind, movement, the vitality of forms, the unfolding and intermingling of colours.”
— Zao Wou-Ki

 

Believing in the oneness of nature and humanity, Zao continued his exploration of cultural synthesis in the 1980s with a renewed sense of joy, freedom and confidence. Already a highly celebrated artist, the artist not only received his first major retrospective in France at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, but also embarked on extended artistic activity in North America. Marking his return to the US art scene, Zao became formally represented by Pierre Matisse, son of Henri Matisse, who would go on to organize two exhibitions in 1980 and 1986 respectively: the former was Zao’s first show in America since the closure of Kootz Gallery in 1967, while the latter featured 20.8.84  as one of the exhibited works. Simultaneously, Zao remained an influential figure in Europeas he was made an Officier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur by the French Minister of Culture in 1984, the same year the present work was created.

 

 

Parallel to his personal achievements, Zao’s work in the 1980s encountered another stylistic shift, with his recovery from past trauma bringing forth a newfound appreciation in life. Being more settled personally, his paintings were distinctly calmer too as he pivoted from monochromatic hues to a bright, luminous palette. Predominantly composed of lighter tones, the vibrancy that exudes from 20.8.84  takes on a pearlescent lustre. Zao’s softened brushstrokes introduces an enhanced fluidity, removing the sharp angular compositional planes present in his previous works. Streams of black, ochre and blue sprout from the lower left edge and dance upon the canvas, with their diluted quality retaining Zao’s brilliant manipulation of translucency from the 1970s. As they slowly merge with the iridescent white light in the upper half, his seamless transition between colours appear to be boundless and infinite, mirroring his frequent international travels throughout his dynamic journey of life.

 

"I admire how Mi Fu arranged space. This differentiates Chinese landscape painting from Western oil painting. In my paintings, a lot of spaces are also left empty. However, as oil paint does not splash as easily as ink, I actually work more meticulously on the empty spaces than the occupied spaces. The ever-flowing, cadenced rhythm resulting from the interaction between the real and the virtual in Chinese paintings has given me significant inspirations."
— Zao Wou-Ki

 

 

An ever-burgeoning universe, 20.8.84’s spirituality is further constructed by the spatial arrangement of elements in the work. With form and colour concentrated on the lower half of the canvas, its empty space again draws comparison with Song Dynasty landscapes. Like artists such as Mi Fu and his son Mi Youren, Zao makes use of the traditional concept of liubai (to leave blank) to provoke interactions between emptiness and form. But while not seeking to be a representation of reality, the delicate paint layers in his surreal abstractions make their way back to nature – separated by a diagonal, it is almost as if the viewer is observing up close a mountain towering into the sky. Seemingly evoking the presence of mist, it concurrently evokes the Mi family’s wet ink technique and their hazy, atmospheric paintings.

 

Frozen in time, the ethereal world of 20.8.84  sees the world, seasons, ink painting and Western artistic sensibilities collide. Demonstrating the successful marriage between abstraction and Chinese brushwork, Zao perfectly combines the contrasting ideals of unconscious discovery and self-awareness. Rejecting the long-standing notion of orientalism, Zao’s brilliance and uniqueness stems from his intrinsic integration of his diverse culture as a Chinese artist. With no sign of human desire or the bustle of life, the artist’s works provide an illusionary sanctuary for the mind and encourages one to reconsider the meaning of existence and faith. Finally triumphant in his search of tranquillity, it is this very intuitiveness that simultaneously propelled Zao onto the cannon of Modern Art, within China and abroad.

 

 

Collector’s Digest

 

• With his charm and unquestionable talent, Zao cultivated an extensive circle of friendships with fellow artists and influential cultural figures during his lifetime, and is since become one of the most important Chinese painters of his generation.

• Widely recognized for his reconciliation of Chinese traditional and Western aesthetics, Zao has received numerous accolades in Europe and Asia, as well as being one of the only Chinese-born artists to become a member of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris alongside Chu Teh-Chun and Wu Guanzhong.

• Known for his works in oil, watercolour and ink, Zao has been celebrated with numerous museum shows at institutions including the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; Asia Society Museum, New York, USA; and STPI, Singapore. Showcasing the artist’s diverse oeuvre, a retrospective of his print works is currently being exhibited at The Hospice Saint-Roch Museum in Issoudun, to be held until 30 December 2023. A major retrospective also opens on 19 September at China Academy of Art Museum in Hangzhou.

• As a truly global artist and cultural synthesiser, Zao’s works can be found in over 150 public collections across 200 countries, which include the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and Tate Modern, amongst others. His legendary legacy continues to inspire generations of creators that come after, proving him to be of paramount importance in art history with unprecedented levels of contribution towards shaping and defining the face of contemporary art today.

 

 

ⁱ Zao Wou-Ki, quoted in Zao Wou-Ki, Autoportrait, Paris, 1988, pp. 139, 142