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€1,560,000
The ineffable Zao Wou-ki
This painting from a large Paris collection, presented as the key lot at this sale in Nantes (Couton - Veyrac - Jamault),
fulfilled all its promises, soaring far above its estimate of around €300,000. On 26 March, it led to a lively battle between
the room and several telephones. Born in Beijing, Zao Wou-ki was a descendant of the illustrious Song family who
reigned in Northern China in mediaeval times. He moved to Paris in 1948, where he met Riopelle, Giacometti and Vieira
da Silva, and became one of the masters of Lyrical Abstraction alongside Soulages and Hartung. His painting began in
a figurative vein, then became more calligraphic, and finally moved towards abstraction in 1956. In his landscapes, he
skilfully combined Chinese and European traditions. According to expert Marc Ottavi: "In Zao Wou-ki's paintings, we
should not see an attachment to Chinese calligraphy so much as ritual, divinatory signs, whose archaism produces
symbols: a kind of shared, ancestral culture present to a constant degree in all of us." In the Sixties, the Franco-Chinese
artist stopped giving titles to his pictures, thus leaving viewers more freedom to interpret them. This painting, on the
market for the first time, was bought by its current owners at the Galerie de France in 1972. After a fierce battle
between around fifteen bidders, it finally went to a resident of Hong Kong for €1,560,000. Chantal Humbert
Zao Wou-ki (b. 1920 or 1921), 28.
8. 67, canvas, 89 x 116 cm.
AUCTION RESULTS THE MAGAZINE
N° 25 I GAZETTE DROUOT INTERNATIONAL
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