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Lot Essay
'I wanted to express its movement, its entanglement, or its burst of energy. I wanted to animate the canvas with contrast and with reverberations of a single colour.' ——Zao Wou-Ki
In the 1950s, when abstract art was sweeping across Paris, Zao Wou-Ki, who was profoundly influenced by Paul Klee, looked back to Chinese bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties for inspiration. He transformed the ancient writings found on these objects including bronze inscriptions and oracle bone scripts into symbols and weaved them into the fabric of Western paintings. Through dismantling, reassembling, and simplifying the lines, he successfully deconstructed the forms of these primitive Chinese characters. This endeavour represents a new and significant chapter in Zao’s artistic development. Eschewing the earlier approach that relied on mimetic representations, he essentially freed his brush and evolved towards full abstraction.
In 1957, Zao journeyed to the United States together with the French artist Pierre Soulages and his wife Colette Soulages. By then, New York had already surpassed Paris as the new art capital. The paintings created by the leading Abstract Expressionists in this bustling metropolis opened Zao’s eyes to the potential of art. Indeed, if French Abstraction may be characterised as anti-form and anti-concept, American Abstraction symbolises freedom, subconsciousness, and emotional outlet. The exciting environment in New York propelled Zao to seek a new approach that would truly speak to himself. One major breakthrough from this period is that he no longer titled his paintings but only dated them. This allows the viewer to focus on the process of engaging with the work itself without being bound by any literal associations. Furthermore, the artist also began to incorporate techniques from Chinese calligraphic and painting traditions into his Western pictorial idiom, another crucial step that paved the way for his iconic style of Lyrical Abstraction.
On his journey to America, Zao met one person who would completely change his life: Samuel Kootz. He soon became represented by this famed New York art dealer, joining the likes of Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Georges Mathieu, and Pierre Soulages. The Kootz Gallery was not only a key player in the circle of American Abstraction, but it also introduced many young foreign artists to the local art scene. As the sole representative of Zao in the United States until its closure in 1966, the gallery had been an enthusiastic supporter of the artist for a decade, organising many solo, group, and travelling shows and greatly expanding his network with private collectors—so much so that a number of his paintings found their way to world-renowned institutions including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. In short, Zao’s name became widely known in the American art circle. When the Kootz Gallery organised his second solo exhibition in 1959, only a single painting was left unsold before the opening, indicating how quickly and firmly the artist established his presence in the United States.
2.6.61 was one of the masterpieces that were exhibited in the Kootz Gallery. By 1961, the year this work was painted, Zao’s unparalleled techniques in the style of Lyrical Abstraction had already matured. A testimony in many regards to the artist’s bravura control of his brush and colour at the time, this painting truly attests to his amalgamation of Western and Chinese artistic ideals. For instance, its three principal colours of mustard yellow, jet black, and ivory white effectively come together to form an ever-expanding spectrum of structural planes. What is striking also is how its richness in composition is well balanced by the subdued space rendered in broad and horizontal strokes located in the upper and lower registers that suggest the ideal of void. The result is a delightful interplay of binaries that oscillate between light and heavy, bright and dark, extending beyond the pictorial confine. Last but not least, lying at the centre are dabs of shining blue hues on top of what essentially constitutes a vortex of black and white strokes. This remarkable addition of blue not only serves to accentuate, but more importantly, activate the entire painting.
Today, the 1960s is widely recognised as the golden era of Zao’s esteemed artistic career when he rose to fame across the world and received endless invitations to participate in local and foreign exhibitions. Artistically, this decade also saw him transforming his passion into a great many masterpieces that have come to define his overall practice. It is therefore not surprising that Zao’s paintings from the 60s are among the most sought-after in the market with over half of his top ten auction records coming from this decade.
In the 1950s, when abstract art was sweeping across Paris, Zao Wou-Ki, who was profoundly influenced by Paul Klee, looked back to Chinese bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties for inspiration. He transformed the ancient writings found on these objects including bronze inscriptions and oracle bone scripts into symbols and weaved them into the fabric of Western paintings. Through dismantling, reassembling, and simplifying the lines, he successfully deconstructed the forms of these primitive Chinese characters. This endeavour represents a new and significant chapter in Zao’s artistic development. Eschewing the earlier approach that relied on mimetic representations, he essentially freed his brush and evolved towards full abstraction.
In 1957, Zao journeyed to the United States together with the French artist Pierre Soulages and his wife Colette Soulages. By then, New York had already surpassed Paris as the new art capital. The paintings created by the leading Abstract Expressionists in this bustling metropolis opened Zao’s eyes to the potential of art. Indeed, if French Abstraction may be characterised as anti-form and anti-concept, American Abstraction symbolises freedom, subconsciousness, and emotional outlet. The exciting environment in New York propelled Zao to seek a new approach that would truly speak to himself. One major breakthrough from this period is that he no longer titled his paintings but only dated them. This allows the viewer to focus on the process of engaging with the work itself without being bound by any literal associations. Furthermore, the artist also began to incorporate techniques from Chinese calligraphic and painting traditions into his Western pictorial idiom, another crucial step that paved the way for his iconic style of Lyrical Abstraction.
On his journey to America, Zao met one person who would completely change his life: Samuel Kootz. He soon became represented by this famed New York art dealer, joining the likes of Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Georges Mathieu, and Pierre Soulages. The Kootz Gallery was not only a key player in the circle of American Abstraction, but it also introduced many young foreign artists to the local art scene. As the sole representative of Zao in the United States until its closure in 1966, the gallery had been an enthusiastic supporter of the artist for a decade, organising many solo, group, and travelling shows and greatly expanding his network with private collectors—so much so that a number of his paintings found their way to world-renowned institutions including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. In short, Zao’s name became widely known in the American art circle. When the Kootz Gallery organised his second solo exhibition in 1959, only a single painting was left unsold before the opening, indicating how quickly and firmly the artist established his presence in the United States.
2.6.61 was one of the masterpieces that were exhibited in the Kootz Gallery. By 1961, the year this work was painted, Zao’s unparalleled techniques in the style of Lyrical Abstraction had already matured. A testimony in many regards to the artist’s bravura control of his brush and colour at the time, this painting truly attests to his amalgamation of Western and Chinese artistic ideals. For instance, its three principal colours of mustard yellow, jet black, and ivory white effectively come together to form an ever-expanding spectrum of structural planes. What is striking also is how its richness in composition is well balanced by the subdued space rendered in broad and horizontal strokes located in the upper and lower registers that suggest the ideal of void. The result is a delightful interplay of binaries that oscillate between light and heavy, bright and dark, extending beyond the pictorial confine. Last but not least, lying at the centre are dabs of shining blue hues on top of what essentially constitutes a vortex of black and white strokes. This remarkable addition of blue not only serves to accentuate, but more importantly, activate the entire painting.
Today, the 1960s is widely recognised as the golden era of Zao’s esteemed artistic career when he rose to fame across the world and received endless invitations to participate in local and foreign exhibitions. Artistically, this decade also saw him transforming his passion into a great many masterpieces that have come to define his overall practice. It is therefore not surprising that Zao’s paintings from the 60s are among the most sought-after in the market with over half of his top ten auction records coming from this decade.