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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jun 3, 2019 | China Guardian | Beijing | 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale | 2059 | $****** - ****** | 31.3.59/1.3.69 | |||
May 27, 2017 | Christie's | Hong Kong | Contemporaries: Voices from East and West / Asian 20th Century & Contemporary Art (Evening Sale) | 54 | $****** - ****** | 03.07.59 |
paintings
60 x 73 cm (23.62 x 28.74 in)
Oil on canvas
From Galerie de Montréal ;
Sotheby's Hongkong, 10 Oct 2007, Lot517.
Zao Wou-ki, P196, Jean Leymarie, Documentation by Françoise Marquet, Editions Hier et Demain, Barcelona, Spain, 1978;
Zao Wou-Ki, P196, Jean Leymarie, Documentation by Francoise Marquet, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 1979;
Zao Wou-ki,P196, Jean Leymarie, Documentation by Françoise Marquet, Editions Cercle d'Art, Paris, 1986.
Signed in Chinese and Pin Yin, dated 1959(lower right); Signed in Pin Yin and title(on the reverse)
LITERATURE:
Zao Wou-ki, P196, Jean Leymarie, Documentation by Françoise Marquet, Editions Hier et Demain, Barcelona, Spain, 1978;
Zao Wou-Ki, P196, Jean Leymarie, Documentation by Francoise Marquet, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 1979;
Zao Wou-ki,P196, Jean Leymarie, Documentation by Françoise Marquet, Editions Cercle d'Art, Paris, 1986.
Signed in Chinese and Pin Yin, dated 1959(lower right); Signed in Pin Yin and title(on the reverse)
PROVENANCE:
From Galerie de Montréal ;
Sotheby's Hongkong, 10 Oct 2007, Lot517.
The item is held under the bonded status, please check the NOTICE ON AUCTION OF BONDED LOTS in this catalogue for details.
Zao Wou-Ki was recognised as the representative person of Lyrical abstraction in Western modernism. Born in 1921, Zao Wou-Ki studied from Lin Fengmian in Hangzhou National College of Art in 1935 and he, together with Wu Guanzhong and Chu The-Chun, were regarded as “The Three Musketeers” in Hangzhou National College of Art. In 1948, after he moved to Paris, he was influenced by Western Modernism, Expressionism and Impressionism paintings and turned to the style of abstraction instead of figurative style. In later 1950s, Zao Wou-Ki made a further step of abstractive expression – he put the elements of cursive calligraphy in China into his creations. So, this period was also recognised as “Wild Cursive Period”. This 31.3.59/1.3.69 in the auction was created in this most personal style and it was the representative work of Zao Wou-Ki in this period.
31.3.59/1.3.69 started to be painted in 1959 and it was finished in 1969, which took 10 years to complete. The creation process nearly occupied the whole “Wild Cursive Period”, indicating how much effort Zao Wou-Ki put on it. In this period of combining cursive style into creations, he used wild strokes and strong emotion to put the strength and oriental style into the paintings. 31.3.59/1.3.69 created from the beginning of “Wild Cursive” with Zao Wou-Ki's typical “ridge composition”. The “ridge” in this painting tends to be smooth and mild，but with a centripetal force like a tornado, the viewer's focus of sight is firmly locked on the undulating middle of the picture. When creating this painting, he continued to change and alternated the picture, making it stand out from the typical Western abstraction paintings. He combined the opinion of “vibrant and vivid” in ancient Chinese painting theory with the Western painting style, making the whole picture with a sense of fluidity in the abstract expressions. The bright yellow and white in the middle of the painting resemble to the snow top of a mountain, which strongly attract viewer's attention. Heavy pigments show a sense of texture and the veins and movement of paintbrush are clearly showed on the canvas.
As for the background, Zao Wou-Ki used a layered and flat dark grey to further highlight the central part of the picture. The colour gradient at the edge shares similarities with the smudges in Chinese ink painting, adding an oriental charm into the oil painting. This kind of light and shadow performance is inspired from “the centre of light” that Zao Wou-Ki pursued during this period. The brightness and darkness of the picture, and the sense of space contain unlimited power. The secluded background and the incitement of the centre form a good balance, which can be connected to the undercurrent under the calm sea.
In this work, Zao Wou-Ki continues the core of blending oriental ink painting and oil painting skills, combining the concepts of landscape in Song Dynasty and cursive calligraphy. This combination is full of the charm of oriental traditions, leading viewers to speculate on the light and darkness of the picture and the expression of space. As he has said: “I can paint freely, with no limitation of my mind...I will not only fulfil it, but give life to it, totally devoting myself into it.” Compared with other artworks in “Wild Cursive Period”, this work doesn't have a large scale and the ups and downs of colour blocks are relatively mild, which is distinguished from other works with strong emotions and wild strokes in the same period. These differences also suggest the exploration at the beginning of “Wild Cursive Period” of Zao Wou-Ki in 1950s.
Zao Wou-Ki's used his extraordinary attention and pursuit of art to present Chinese paintings in the Western world with a brand-new appearance after waiting for a century long. “Only in the unremitting pursuit of the state will there be eternal dissatisfaction and new ideas”. It is this state of unremitting pursuit that the traditional Chinese connotation can be returned and regenerated in Zao Wou-Ki's creation.
