Born in Beijing in 1920, Zao Wou-Ki leveraged both Eastern and Western artistic traditions while training in China. In 1947, he moved to Paris and associated with influential artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró. As part of the École de Paris, Zao Wou-Ki emphasized abstraction during the post-war period, but he also worked in a representational mode at times and liked to collaborate across genres, creating theatrical set designs and book illustrations. For American writer Harry Roskolenko’s Paris Poems (1950), Zao Wou-Ki produced six original drawings, including a black cat, and went on to publish various limited print editions. During his career, Zao Wou-Ki was more appreciated in China than the West, but after passing in 2013, a major retrospective at the Asia Society in New York in 2016 helped raise his profile with collectors, leading to much higher auction prices. Today Zao Wou-Ki’s work is held by major institutions worldwide, including the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
