Zao Wou-Ki: Infinite Dialogues

EVENT DESCRIPTION

PhillipsX, the selling exhibition platform operated by the global Private Sales team at Phillips, is pleased to present Zao Wou-Ki: Infinite Dialogues from 6-29 March. This selling exhibition offers audiences a rare opportunity to encounter Zao’s oeuvre in dialogue with works by artists with whom he shared profound affinities, including Hans Hartung, Georges Mathieu, Sam Francis, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and others. Featuring a remarkable selection of paintings, works on paper, sculptures, and prints spanning more than seven decades of creation, the exhibition highlights the dynamic exchanges between East and West in the postwar era. Coinciding with Phillips’ West Kowloon neighbor M+’s Zao Wou-Ki: Master Printmaker, it extends a unique moment for audiences to rediscover the artist’s legacy in depth.

Zao Wou-Ki’s remarkable career was profoundly shaped by his years in Paris from the late 1940s onward, when he became immersed in a circle of artists whose ideas nurtured his reflections on painting and abstraction. In 1951, only three years after his arrival in Paris, Zao began exhibiting at the avant garde Galerie Pierre alongside leading abstract artists of the time, including Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Georges Mathieu, Jacques Germain, and Jean Paul Riopelle—who would go on to become his lifelong friend. Friendships proved pivotal for his career: poet Henri Michaux introduced gallerist Pierre Loeb to Zao in the early 1950s, while Pierre Soulages later connected him with influential New York dealer Sam Kootz, who began representing Zao in 1957. These encounters formed a rich tapestry of artistic exchange, underscoring the networks that propelled his career and the dialogues between East and West that lie at the heart of this exhibition.

At the center of the exhibition is Retour de pêche, a 1953 work that marked a pivotal moment in Zao’s career as he shifted from still-life compositions toward abstraction. The present work depicts a sweeping oceanic vision where indigo light illuminates two-thirds of the canvas and vessels drift into the night. The sea is articulated through rare, linear brushwork that layers rippling waves into rhythmic order, recalling the Water Painting (Shui Tu) tradition of Song master Ma Yuan—whom Zao deeply admired—and lending the work a distinctive resonance within his early oeuvre. The piece occupies an especially important place in his artistic development, and its distinguished provenance further enhances its significance, having once belonged to New York collector Patti Birch, an early and ardent champion of Zao’s art.

Another highlight is Les Attiseurs (The Guardian of The Flame), distinguished by its provenance as part of Myriam Prévot’s collection at Galerie de France, where Zao later forged a landmark three decade collaboration. Les Attiseurs is one of the first truly abstract works in Zao’s oeuvre where figurative elements in his previous compositions dissolve into abstract signs inspired by ancient Chinese oracle bones inscription.

Painted in 2005, Le vert caresse l’orange – 11.06.2005 stands as a landmark work created shortly after Zao Wou-Ki’s election to the French Academy of Fine Arts and his major retrospective at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume. Its vibrant yellow and pink palette recalls the artist’s breakthrough style of the 1980s while evoking the spirit of the Impressionist masters. Most recently, the painting was featured in The Way is Infinite: Centennial Retrospective of Zao Wou-Ki at the Art Museum of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou in 2023, the largest retrospective of the artist in China in over two decades.

Jean Paul Riopelle’s Vol de Chute stands out as a fresh to market masterpiece, distinguished by its vibrant palette and exceptional impasto that exemplify the artist’s dynamic approach to abstraction. Exhibited extensively across major cities—including Montreal (1963), Toronto (1971), Vancouver (1973), and New York (2005)—the work carries a rich exhibition history that underscores its importance within Riopelle’s oeuvre. As a close friend of Zao Wou Ki, Canadian Riopelle shared the cross cultural dialogues that shaped postwar abstraction, making this canvas a compelling highlight of the exhibition.