What art movement was the painter Zao Wou-Ki associated with?
The Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki was an artist associated with the Lyrical Abstraction movement. He was also linked to the abstract landscape movement.
Zao Wou-Ki studied traditional Chinese painting and Western painting techniques at the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts. He quickly broke away from the imposed teaching content and began to paint in oils, a typical Western painting technique. The Chinese painter was especially influenced by avant-garde artists such as Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso, whom he discovered through newspaper photos. Zao Wou-Ki arrived in Paris in 1948, where he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and met the leading figures of the Parisian art world: the Americans Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis, the Canadian Jean-Paul Riopelle, the German Hans Hartung, the French painter Pierre Soulages, and the Portuguese artist Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. Zao Wou-Ki’s painting style became increasingly abstract. The artist confided about his work, “Still lifes and flowers don’t exist anymore. I lean towards an imaginary, undecipherable writing.”
Please visit the Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki’s dedicated page or the page on Lyrical Abstraction to learn more about this art movement.
