ZAO Wou-Ki - Grasses, signed screenprint on Limoges

Zao Wou-Ki : is a painter born in Pékin and naturalized French in 1953. He is one of the most renowned figure of the lyric abstraction representant of Lyrical Abstraction. Between 1935-1941 he studies in Hangzhou Fine-arts School, at the end of these studies he relized his first exhibition in Chang-King. He settled in Paris in 1948 and frequented Othon Friesz's workshop at The Grande-Chaumière academy, and The Fine-Art School. He met Sam Francis, Riopelle, Soulages, Hartung, Giacometti, Vieira da Silva. In 1950 the poet Henri Michaux wrote a text about Zao Wou-Ki's first lithographs. Paul Klee's work seen in Bern in 1951 radically steers Zao Wou-Ki toward abstraction. In 1962 the painter created ten litographs for André Malraux "La tentation de l'Occident" (The Wester temptation). In 1980, he is appointed wall painting teacher at The "École Nationale Supérieure des arts Décoratifs" (National Superior School of decorative arts). The artist won several prices : he is named laureate of the Praemium Imperiale Award of Painting of Japan in 1994, the following year he received The "Prix de Science pour l’Art" (created by LVMH). And the Taylor Foundation Price in 2001. In 1998, the painter creates a wall panel in ceramic, realized in Sintra by Viuva Lameco Ceràmique for The "Atlantic" metro station in Lisboa. Through his work, he achieved the synthesis between the technical means of his Far East heritage and the plastic and poetic ambition of the western Lyrical Abstraction.
Screen print : Screen printing, also known as silkscreen, serigraphy, and serigraph printing - from latin "Sericum (silk) and greek "grapheion" (writing) - is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil to receive a desired image. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image into a substrate. It is possible to use different meshes, for different colors, and create multi-colored works. In the field of art, it is important to know how many prints have been made. The total number of prints is usually written on the print (e.g 20/200).

Musée d'Evreux (France)
Walker Art Center (The USA)
MacVal (France)
Collection Société Générale (France)
Das Museum Folkwang (Germany)
The Bridgestone Museum of art Ishibashi Foundation (Japan)
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (The USA)
Museum Abteiberg (Germany)
Musée des Beaux Arts de Nantes (France)
Les Abattoirs - FRAC Midi Pyrénées (France)
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) (The USA)
Nykytaiteen museo Kiasma (Finland)
Davis Art Museum, Wellesley College (The USA)
FRAC Basse Normandie (France)
Carnegie Museum of art (The USA)
Fonds Municipal d'art contemporain de Paris (France)
Artothèque du Limousin + FACLIM (France)
The National Museum of Art, Osaka (Japan)
MIT List Visual arts Center (The USA)
Artothèque, Grenoble (France)
Centre Pompidou - Musée national d'art moderne (France)
Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje (FYROM)
Artothèque de Brest (France)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) (The USA)
Musée de la cour d'or - Metz (France)
Marcel Brient Collection (France)
Sara Hildén Art Museum (Finland)
Artothèque, Angers (France)
Centre national des arts plastiques (France)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York (The USA)
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College (The USA)
Tate Collection (United Kingdom)
Artothèque, Poitiers (France)
mglc (Slovenia)
Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (México)
Artothèque, Millau (France)
Eli ans Edythe Broad Art Museum (The USA)
Fondation Gandur pour l'art (Switzerland)
Musée d'art de Joliette (Canada)
Musée de Pully (Switzerland)
Collection Gelonch Viladegut