Zao Wou-Ki was a Chinese-French painter. His artworks are responsible for making the Western and Eastern visual styles meet each other. Zao’s aesthetics are best explained as a combination of the abstract method borrowed from the West and the Chinese concept of Tao, best explained as the meditative spirit characteristic to Eastern traditions.
Background
Mr. Zao was born in on February 1, 1920, in Beijing, China. A few months later, his family went to live in Shanghai. He was a member of a family with genetic roots found in Dantu District, Zhenjiang, a famous Jiangsu province in China. His parents were quite wealthy and there are records that prove their bloodline can be connected to the Song Dynasty – such circumstances allowed Zao Wou-Ki to have a very comfortable childhood without much worry about what future has in store for him. Heavily influenced by his father, he took a keen interest in history and classical literature ever since he was a toddler and such explorations encouraged his passion for Chinese calligraphy.
Education
It is in Nantung that young Zao Wou-Ki went to primary school and followed three years of secondary education. From the age of ten, he drew and painted with great freedom. His family did not really impede his desire to be a painter. Thus predisposed in a family of intellectuals where painting had always been honoured, he learnt with his grand-father that calligraphy was an art as long as it was alive and conveyed emotions.
At the age of fifteen, in 1935, Mr. Zao succeeded at the entrance examination of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, with the drawing of the cast of a Greek statue. During six years he learnt to draw from casts and from a live model, he learnt oil painting but also traditional Chinese painting, Western perspective and of the theory of calligraphy. He was taught by Lin Fengmian, Fang Ganmin and Wu Dayu. Young Zao Wou-Ki very quickly started to make oil paintings, graduating in 1941.
Interests
Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso
Zao Wou-Ki’s first wife, Lan-lan, was a composer. They parented one son. In the mid-1950s, the couple divorced. Later he remarried Chan May-Kan, a film actress who had two children from her first marriage. Under the influence of Zao, she became a successful sculptor. In 1972, she committed suicide at age 41 due to mental illness.Wife:Zao Lan-lan – Chinese – composerWife:Chan May-Kan – Chinese – sculptor , actress
~ Source: https://prabook.com/web/zao.wou-ki/3742892
