ZHONG CHENG

Zhong Cheng 2024 Autumn Auction「Modern And Contemporary Art」

  • Zhong Cheng 2022 Spring Auction「Modern And Contemporary Art」
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    ZAO WOUKI (1921-2013)

    03.11.63

    1963

    Oil on Canvas
    50 x 46 cm

    Signed Wou-Ki in Chinese and ZAO in English Signed on the reverse：ZAO WOU-Ki in English, dated 3.11.63, Dédié à Linda in french, WOU-Ki in Chinese and ZAO in English

    Estimate TWD 26,000,000-38,000,000
    USD 911,000-1,331,500
    HKD 0-0

    Hammer Price TWD 32,960,000
    USD 1,113,890
    HKD 8,789,333

With a certificate of authenticity issued by the ZAO WOUKI Fondation

Provenance：Gagosian gallery, New York, United States

Illustrated：

Exhibition：

Exposition：The following work has been registered in the Archives of the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation, Francois Marquet is currently preparing for the “Zao Wou-Ki Chronological Collection” (Information provided by the

Zao Wou-ki was skilled at weaving abstract compositions with idiosyncratically elegant lines and nuanced colors. He dissolved the divide between Chinese and Western paintings, constructing a divine realm with the conceptual depth of Chinese painting using ingenious oil painting techniques. Such approach further distilled and evolved into his own lyrical abstraction that is beyond profound. Zao was the artist who bridged the Eastern and Western art. He alternated between the deliberately rounded and the liberally angular brushwork to create a poetic domain overflown with deep, vivid imagery glowing in the cosmos. Zao was regarded as a representative of Western lyrical abstraction, and a titan held in high esteem in the global art sphere. In 2002, Zao was inducted into the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Paris. He was also awarded the ranks of Grand Officier of the Legion of Honor, Commandeur of the National Order of Merit and Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters, as well as the Medal of the City of Paris and Praemium Imperiale Award of Painting by the Emperor of Japan. His name, along with Chinese American architect, I.M. Pei, and composer, Chou Wen-chung, were hailed as “The Three Treasured Overseas Chinese”.

Cursive momentum beyond form and limit

In 1957, Zou Wou-ki set off for the world. Beginning in Paris, he first arrived in New York, went on to visit Hawaii, Japan and Hong Kong, and eventually returned to Paris. Two encounters during the trip had profound influence over his career – his second wife, celebrity May Chen and Samuel Kootz, the New York art dealer. Love immediately nourished the lyrical potential in his art. With Kootz’s encouragement, Zao broke free from self-imposed limitations and began large format works. He approached this with a sense of experimentation. He said, “I wanted to paint the unseen, the breath of life, the wind, movement, the life of forms, the birth of colors and their fusion.” At the time, this primitive desire and inspirational impulse to create became the driving force that propelled him to paint day and night. 

The ebb and flow in life is often laid bare on canvas. In the 1950s, Zao moved beyond the figurative and edged toward the fluidity of lyrical abstraction. He returned from Western modern to the Chinese tradition. With each painting, his skills solidified, culminating in the 1960s with the Hurricane Period, the apex of his career. The scorching dynamism won him wide acclaims in the West. After solo exhibitions at the famous Galerie de France in Paris and the Kootz Gallery in New York, he started to tour the world. Zao described himself from that period, “I spent ten years at full speed, like driving a fast car.” Pierre Schneider, an authoritative French art critic spoke highly of Zao’s works from this period, “Compared to his earlier works, Zao Wou-ki’s paintings from the 60s were more extensive, evocative and proficient in bringing out his unique temperament and natural character.”

Since 1958, Zao started to simply title his works with the date on which they were completed. His style also grew completely abstract. He said in his autobiography, “I no longer need to create symbols. They are guidelines but also constraints for understanding the painting. I am inspired by what is within me. It changes with my mood and through different colors, I can express them clearly.” Calligraphy strokes are a frequent element in Zao’s works during this period. Departing from the symbolisms of the Oracle Bone Period, he reinterpreted “Mo Fen Wu Si” (the five tones of ink) with oil paint. He let inspirations flow freely through the canvas, where shifting emotions are performing an intimate and wild duet with color intensity. This is the period in which Zao’s skills in capturing emotions and energy matured. The most pronounced features of the Hurricane Period are dissected composition traversed with piercing lines, strokes that express strength and velocity, and imposing momentum generated by ardent and undulating emotions. Comparing to the complex and potent display of the focal point, the background seems pale, striking a spatial balance between the still and the dynamic, the void and the solid. The imagery has morphed beyond the figurative landscape, transforming into a natural vitality that flows between heaven and earth, bursting with immense energy from the universe.

Esoteric realm of omnipresent synergy

03.11.63 was completed in late 1963, as Zao Wou-ki reached the prime of his life. His techniques in oil painting were also approaching the peak. During this period, his turned toward bright and vivid colors, focusing on grasping space and light, and embodying natural elements such as the heaven and earth; water and fire. Nuanced with agitated motion, it is a salute to the sacred power of mother nature. Zao believed in “less is more” for painters, and replaced any human-based languages with teeming emotions. Life as a Franco-Chinese artist in France also elevated his spiritual evolvement. “Of course, Paris plays a pivotal role in my career. However, as I developed in Paris, I rediscovered China.” Like the rest of his works from the 1960s, 03.11.63 is filled with esoteric poetics, philosophical imagery of the East and profound depth from the traditional landscape paintings. The famous Southern Dynasty Buddhist monk, Zong Bing, once wrote in his Hua Shanxue Shi (Introduction to Landscape Painting), “Sages model themselves on the Way in spirit and worthies are enlightened. Mountains and Rivers beautify the way with physical forms and the benevolent finds pleasant.” When resonating with the “physical form” of nature, an artist is able to capture its spiritual form and transform it into paintings that resonate with viewers. As the viewers gaze into the painting, they become one with nature, and come to possessing insights of the entire universe. 

Crimson red burns like fire in 03.11.63. Mixed within are a few splashes of black brown, denoting the stabilizing energy of earth. White glides with vigor through the top and bottom, dissecting the image into sections. Profound stillness penetrates through the emptiness like traditional washed ink paintings. Rushing wildly to the center are cursive strokes charging forward like stallions, like thunder, like lightning. Bursting with abstract momentum, the strokes pound on the numbness of a tensed human heart like blood gushing out. Zao’s paintings always compress and encapsulate nature with time and space, which he regarded as a silent call from nature, like the gathering wind, like the converging mountains and waters. With his paintbrush, he captured the stormy and peaceful moments of nature, and appeased them into a harmonious coexistence.

Art critic Jia Fang Zhou once thus described Zao Wou-ki’s works, “When he transitioned from portraying mysterious symbols to representing the mysterious space, we sense a stronger presence of Eastern philosophy. His works are fundamentally structured upon convergence among the relaxed. With sharp fragmented strokes, he congregated the imaginary objects, clashed them against one another and focused up close like a photographer. The focal point in a state of conflict and resistance thus takes shape. The rest are pushed to the fringe, diffused and diluted. This pattern became his signature in the 60s and 70s.” In the center of 03.11.63, the lines and colors collide. Intense passions constrict and then burst out while transcendent energy echoes in the pale distance. On the one hand, Zao adopted the use of light from the West, creating a sense of physicality in visuality. On the other hand, he infused such physicality with the same abstraction the Chinese literati found in the abyss of the universe. He said, “I dare say my painting is a romantic one.” This romantic sentiment never escaped him, making 03.11.63 a perpetual vortex where chaos and stability coexist, conflicting and yet harmonious, echoing the heaving passion and eternal pulse deep inside the heart of this painting.

Treasured brilliance in a boundless realm

Breathing inside Zao Wou-ki’s long career as an artist is a poetic and classical soul. He breathed in the essence of Chinese art and culture and expressed them through Western means. He depicted Chinese philosophy with romantic abstraction, taking the viewers on a cosmic tour with his epic and lyrical strokes. Zao’s artistic achievement holds an undeniable presence in the rapidly evolving history of Western modern art and an equally monumental standing in the East. His status needs no superfluous embellishment, as many prominent museums worldwide are collectors of his works. With modesty and humility, he proved that however binary, Eastern and Western art shall converge in a poetic realm. The visual lexicons he created transcend regionality and nationality, representing the transformation and sublimation of the creative energy from an era, and becoming a salient signature that enshrined him as a master on the international stage.

Zao’s close friend, French poet Henri Michaux once said, “Zao Wou-Ki’s painting is formless, but still connected with nature in essence. Its tenacity is neither bizarre nor aloof. The warm and fluid colors are colors no more, but light that gushes out like rapids.” When the colors are inhabited with living souls, the light of life shall shine brightly over the entire canvas. 03.11.63 is a rare gem from Zao’s Hurricane Period and his six-decade career. It represents his unrelenting efforts to break new grounds in an ever-changing world. It is also a testimony to the culminating momentum that propelled his potent and radiant life to the sublime state of boundless realm. 

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