"Bord de mer", 1951

Zao Wou Ki began studying at the Hangtschou art academy at the age of fourteen. Impressed by European modern art, he emigrated to Paris in 1948 and later became a French citizen. He increasingly turned away from representative art and began to combine the calligraphy of his Chinese heritage with European Informel. His poetically abstract works evoke associations of terrestrial or cosmic landscapes.