Zao Wou-Ki

Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki has a body of work spanning more than 70 years, experimenting with and reconciling Chinese and Western artistic traditions.

Born in Beijing, he studied at the Hangzhou National College of Art, where he learnt to master Chinese ink drawings and Western-style paintings. In 1941 he became a drawing instructor at the school and taught there until 1948, when he decided to leave for Paris. Except for brief returns to his homeland and later trips to New York, Zao spent most of the rest of his life in Europe.

Zao's works, influenced by Paul Klee, are orientated towards abstraction. He names them with the date he finishes them, and in them masses of colours appear that materialise a creative world, like a Big Bang, where light structures the canvas.

Although his work was stylistically similar to the Abstract Expressionists he met while travelling in New York, he was influenced by Impressionism. Zao Wou-Ki claimed to have been influenced by the works of Matisse, Picasso and Cézanne.

Painter Zao Wou-Ki painted a tile panel in Viúva Lamego for the Oriente metro station, Lisbon, in 1998.