Born in 1920 in Peking (now Beijing) Zao Wou-Ki attended the National School of the Arts, Hangchow for six years before becoming a drawing instructor there. In 1947, the artist moved to Paris where he would become friends with the artists Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró. Using primarily oil paint, watercolor, and—eventually—ink, Zao developed a unique style defined by contrasting colors, intense linework, and lyrical abstraction. During his lifetime, Zao exhibited worldwide. He received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale Award for Painting and the Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur. Today, his work can be found in the collections of the Louvre, the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Tate, among many others. Zao died in Switzerland at the age of 93 in 2013.
