Oil on canvas

65 x 81 cm. 25 1/2 x 31 7/8 in.

signed in Chinese and English on bottom right； signed in English and titled on reverse
LITERATURE
1983, An Exhibition of ZAO WOU-KI's Paintings, National Museum of History, Taipei, Ill.23
1986, Zao Wou-Ki, Circle d'Art, Paris,plate 549,p352
1986, Zao Wou-Ki, Editiones Poligrafa, Barcelona, plate 549,p352

EXHIBITED
5- 26 Jan 1983, ZAO WOU-KI, National Museum of History, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Important Private collection, Asia

Note: This work will be included in the artist's forthcoming catalogue raisonné prepared by Françoise Marquet and Yann Hendgen （Information provided by Foundation Zao Wou-Ki）

From Heaven and Earth, Depict the Nature in an Intangible Form.
The prosperity of Zao Wou-ki in the 1980s
He was the first Chinese artist to hold an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris； an important representative of the East-West art exchange in the 20th century, and was reputed "one of the greatest artists in Europe today" by Chinese master architect Ieoh Ming Pei； the first Chinese-born modern artist accepted by the European art circle； his works spread across 138 public museum collections in more than 20 countries； he is also the holder of the Chinese oil painting world auction record. Such is he, Zao Wou-ki.
This June, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris presented an exhibition, "The Space of Silence,” devoted to Zao Wou-ki's works, which was the second large-scale retrospective exhibition held in France after fifteen years. The opening appealed to a diverse audience and art lovers from all over the world, showing the charm and international status of Zhao's art which has broken through national borders.
An enviable reputation comes with the achievement of harmony and perfection.
In 1953, Zao Wou-Ki turned from figurative to abstract painting. Inspired by Oracle bone texts, he started to compose with lines and symbols. In the 1960s, his paintings were mostly painted with bold brushstrokes in black and brown, rich in tension and profound emotions. In the early 1970s, due to the death of his wife, May-Kan, Zao was encompassed with grief and suspended painting. After a year and a half, he started afresh with significant changes in his artistic approach. The edge embedded in his early works began to fade away while the lyrical and elegant temperament of Chinese ink was emerging. In the 1980s, the spirit and style of Zao's painting moved into a phase with more profound expression of inner world. After nearly 40 years of artistic exploration, Zao Wou-ki ushered in a golden stage of harmonious and perfectly fused painting.
The 80s witnessed the peak of Zao's artistic achievement and international reputation. In 1981, invited by the prestigious French museum, the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Zao Wou-ki held a large-scale exhibition concurrently with the Russian-French abstract master Nicolas de Stael, showing the French art scene's thorough recognition of Zao's achievement, a milestone of his art career. The work offered this time, 16.02.82, can be described as an iconic representative of Zao Wou-ki's creation towards perfection in the 80s. In the following year of its completion, the work was presented in the solo exhibition at the Taipei Museum of History. Being in a private collection for more than 30 years, the work is staging a debut which cannot be missed.
An eye-catching treasure: building multi-spaces with singular techniques
Since the early sixties, Zao has been trying to fuse turpentine oil into the paint, to forge rich spatial layers through the subtle graduation out from the fused oil paint. After re-exploring the roots of Chinese painting in the 1970s, he gained a brand-new perspective on the use of color. He employed the layered rendering effect of Chinese traditional ink painting into the composition, bringing out the vivid charm of ink painting to create an elegant and poetic pictorial symphony, which established a new approach of expression for western art. The work, 16.02.82, has perfectly illustrated his interpretation of the innovative technique. At the top of the image, the artist applied large horizontal brushstrokes with ductile paint and smooth movement, which resulted from the light texture of turpentine oil. Look at a distance, the painting appears a blended color of yellow and green, while a wide range of colors presents themselves at a closer look. Pigments in pale yellow, light green, lavender, and cyan overlap with each other, shedding a glamorous luster. The gradation of shades appears exquisite yet clear, glittering and translucent, showing the artist's mastering of paint and color.
Zao Wou-ki transformed his comprehensive understanding of the essence of Chinese ink paintings, “How obscure! How vague! In it there is form. How vague! How obscure! In it, there are things”, into the pursuit of blending, collision, and regeneration of color. As he said, "I wanted to paint what cannot be seen, the breath of life, the wind, the movement, the life of forms, the colors' outbreak and their fusion." Trying to obtain new color from the occasional collisions of the color and the instant when ink touches the raw Xuan paper, Zao emphasized shaping the space through the combination and transition of colors.
Viewing afar, the overall painting is faintly covered by a pale pinkish grey tone, which blends with the green of the lower left, the indigo of the lower right and the yellow above, generating not only the smooth transition of color but also the artistic conception of blank leaving, forming a visual rhythm. Upon closer scrutiny, it's evident that the green and blue colors of different shades and saturation infiltrate each other layer by layer. Besides, the artist applied white color to the blue gradually from right to left, which creates the variation from azure blue to light blue spot, resembling the sky speckled with stars and the movement of life, stunning the audience with its rich variations hidden in every detail.
Integrate the essence of different styles and present the landscape of mental imagery.
As to the arrangement of form, 16.02.82 fully integrates the characteristics of every period of Zao's art career. The vigorous dark brown lines intertwine across the image, spreading from the borders towards the center, of which the brushstrokes are full of tension, exemplifying the artist's characteristics from the 50s to the 60s. Encompassing the brown lines are calm colors of green and blue which confront each other, like a verdant hill and a lake, softening the tension from the brown color. This particular arrangement does not only bring an enriched composition, but also present a calm and restrained spirit, reminiscent of the ethereal and temperate feeling in Chinese ink paintings.
In 1966, while looking at The Madonna and Child in Majesty Surrounded by Angels from the Florentine painting master Cimabue at the Louvre, Zao praised it as "the most beautiful painting of the Louvre" and pointed out the cloud and mist depicted in Chinese landscape painting are analogous to the halo of the angel, which is the fundamental element that generates a special space. Inspired by this, he created in his work a sense of haziness through the arrangement of the solid and void, the light and the darkness, so that the landscape of mental imagery is achieved, and the form and spirit of the universe are unfolded.

Price estimate:
HKD: 3,800,000 - 4,800,000
USD: 484,100 - 611,500

Auction Result:
HKD : 6,820,000