ZAO WOU-KI (ZHAO WUJI, 1920-2013)

Zao Wou-Ki went through the late-1940s and early '50s painting mainly landscapes and still-lifes, before transitioning into expressive abstraction during the mid-1950s and early '60s. By the late '60s, after exploring abstraction for more than a decade, Zao had mastered the style and harmonized colour, brushwork, and composition into a flawless work of art.

In the 1970s, Zao arrived at another new phase in his artistic career, forgoing the Hurricane structure and weighty strokes and replacing them with implicit textures. The artist reignited his interest of working with Chinese ink brush after visting China multiple times since the beginning of the decade. Instead of painting on xuan paper in a traditional Chinese approach, Zao masters the brush-and-ink working method and expresses the joy of life on canvas.

22.04.77 is a subdued work that is imbued with elements of nature, showing Zao's gravitation towards the capture of space and light in the '70s. Painted the year after Zao met his third wife Francoise Marquet, the turpentine-diluted oil paint on 22.04.77 shows a soft, light texture, sublimating into a glow that is possibly a visual reflection of the artist's inner joy as a newlywed. In this '70s work, the delicate colour palette of white over ochre, blue, yellow exudes a peaceful and calm aura.