Oil on canvas

97 x 105 cm. 38 1/8 x 41 3/8 in.

Signed in Chinese and English， dated in bottom right
LITERATURE
1986, ZAO WOU-KI, Paris Edition Cercle d'Art, France, p.403
1993, ZAO WOU-KI, Holly Affinity Gallerie, Taipei, Front cover
1995, A Retrospective of ZAO WOU-KI, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, p.156
2000, Treasure in Mountain-The Select Collection of Mountain Art Museum, Mountain Art Museum, Kaohsiung, p.24
2003, Legend of The Mountain-Encountering Western Masteres' Works, Mountain Art Foundation, Taipei, p.19
2014, The Joy of Collecting Art, Artist Publishing, Taipei, p.64

EXHIBITED
Jan 1996, A Retrospective Of ZAO WOU-KI, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung
Jul 2000, Treasure in Mountain-The Select Collection of Mountain Art Museum, Mountain Art Museum, Kaohsiung
Mar 2003, Legend of The Mountain-Encountering Western Masteres' Works, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai
Apr 2003, Legend of The Mountain-Encountering Western Masteres' Works, Sichuan Art Museum, Chengdu
Apr 2014, The Joy of Collecting Art, Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Galerie de France, Paris
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）

Splendor of Dynamic Colours
Sensual Pulsation Between Nature and Life
06.10.68, The Masterpiece at The Pinnacle of Zao Wou-Ki's Creativity
Since the 60s, I've been able to paint with a free hand, to paint as I please； issues of technique no longer exist. … I wanted to use contrasts and vibrations within a single color to bring movement to the canvas. I feel carefree and content in the chaotic mix of colors and densely overlapping brushstrokes. Strong and obstreperous, the chaos attracts me more than silence. Every day is a new battle.
—Zao Wou-Ki
Zao Wou-Ki came to France in 1948 when he was just an ignorant youth with a head full of artistic dreams. After 12 years of exploration and hard practice, in 1960, he finally found and established his own creative style and secured his position in the field of post-war Western abstract art. In the 1960s, his name was mentioned along those of Parisian artists such as Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung. Famous galleries, such as the Parisian Galerie de France and the American Kootz Gallery, which among others represented well-known American abstract expressionists Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, decided to endorse him. Under the joint promotion of these two galleries, Zao Wou-Ki's art entered the international stage. As Zao Wou-Ki said himself, during this period, all his past efforts actually paid off. In 1963, he moved into a studio at Rue Jonquoy, where he was able to create large-scale paintings, and began to frequently release his works around the world, for example through solo exhibitions at the Redfern Gallery in London in 1963 and at the Kootz Gallery in 1964. From 1965 to 1968, he also held large-scale retrospectives at the Museum Folkwang in Germany and in the San Francisco Museum of Art. The American media praised him as “an oriental painter who made a sensation in the Western art scene”, and his creative career entered a golden age. 06.10.68, featured in this auction, is a masterpiece from this period.
Beyond Boundaries: His Inheritance and Innovation from Chinese Calligraphy
My genes are from the East, I am still Chinese.
—Zao Wou-Ki
Since 1958, Zao Wou-Ki intentionally reduced the use of color on canvas to three or less, even resorting to nearly monochromatic painting, challenging himself to “limitless creation while limited”. 06.10.68 is an example of such a challenge. He used coffee brown and dark brown in the top of the picture, with a wider, dark brown, horizontal brush in the middle and lower parts of the canvas to create something akin to a magnificent sky and earth and encompass the center of the picture. In the middle of the frame, the viewer can admire Zao's skillful use of various techniques including slapping, rubbing, pointing, etc. The brush strokes sometimes resemble a whirlwind motion, sometimes a rumbling spring thunder, and sometimes a gentle scrape against the water, echoing the breathing rhythm of nature. In order to approximate monochrome painting, his brushstrokes change endlessly, just like traditional Chinese ink, which evoked feelings with five different shades: thin, thick, heavy, light, and pale.
Zao Wou-Ki did not depict nature in a literally representational way, but the picture is indeed in reference to it. If one looks closely at the lines that collide with each other at the center of the painting, the lines will evoke spouting water, blowing wind, rays of light, and so on. “The extension and depth of nature are contained in the painting,” French art critic Barbara Kruger said. “With his depiction of the ever-changing nature, Zao Wou-Ki had reached the peak period of his creation.” Two Song Dynasty poems come mind when viewing his work: Liu Yong's Bells Ringing in the Rain （“I cannot help thinking of misty waves a thousand li away / The broad southern sky is suffused with heavy evening mist”） and Su Shi's Poem of Red Cliffs （“Oh Great River to the east she flowed. / Her billows cleansed and washed off. / Massive stony peaks pierced into the sky, quaking waves splashing upon her shore, spilled thousand piles of snow.”） It can be said that 06.10.68 shows a movement that echoes the rhythm of life.
Expressive lines and flexible strokes, the key elements of 06.10.68 reveal the artist's traditional calligraphy skills and his intimate understanding thereof. Chinese calligraphy has a history dating back thousands of years, starting from the inscriptions on the stone drums of the pre-Qin people to the semi-cursive, cursive, seal, and clerical scripts dated back to the Han Dynasty. In addition, each of the various strokes gives off its own effect, and the calligraphy's pursuit of the writer's inner cultivation and spirituality had brought profound inspiration to many Western expressionists of the early 20th century. Zao Wou-Ki had studied calligraphy during his childhood along with his grandfather, and his understanding of it was therefore much deeper than that of his Western peers. While creating this painting, he utilized Western media and abstract language to express the essence of China's long-standing calligraphy culture. Thanks to this artistic innovation, he stands out from the Western abstract movement, and the endless changes made with a monochrome brown palette echo the traditional Chinese ideal of expressing “five shades” with black ink.
A French poet, Henri Michaux, once said, “When we see a technique close to a modern Western artist's, it nevertheless follows his Chinese path, similar to the murmur of his native language, a path that is free from authority.” The “murmur” of 06.10.68 is under a form of constant intensification, creating aesthetic shock.
Unveiled Emotions: to Bear the Lightness and Weight of Being a son, Husband and an Artist
I was brimming with things I wanted to say artistically, and I knew how to express them. The new space became mine, and I could breathe freely in it. Being a painter is not only about making strokes and applying colors, but also about cultivating and accumulating emotions deep inside and then using strokes and colors to express them.
—Zao Wou-Ki
As Zao Wou-Ki said, the essence of creation, in addition to shaping space, is expressing one's inner emotions. For him, painting was like writing a diary, recording his mood, life, thoughts, and observations of the surrounding world. In June 1968, when he painted 06.10.68, his career was quite successful, but he was experiencing grief due to the loss of his loved ones. In this year, during the most horrifying times of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, his father, a banker, whom he admired and loved, passed away due to a series of harsh criticisms and denouncements. Zao Wou-Ki discovered that there was no end to his sadness. He had left home in 1948 and had not returned to China for political reasons for 20 years. On the first page of his autobiography, Zao Wou-Ki: Autoportrait, he said, “The regret of not being able to see my father makes me sleepless all night. I often dream of his kind eyes. When I naively told him that I wanted to be a painter, he believed in me. If not for his trust, maybe I would not have stuck to it.” This is the most sincere confession an expatriate can make. The same year, the mental illness of his then-wife, Chan May-Kan （May Zao） worsened, and one can only imagine what kind of psychological pressure Zao Wou-Ki, as a husband, must have felt. The large, dark brown areas of 06.10.68 as well as the hurried, short strokes may reveal his complex mood at the time, including his deepest thoughts on his father's death back in his motherland. After using deep and heavy colors, the artist left a blank space at the bottom, echoing the empty spots in the middle. In the picture, the unbearable weight and the lightness, the emptiness, and the fullness of life have achieved a temporary balance after a long struggle.
François Cheng, a Chinese-born French writer, once pointed out, “The abstraction of Zao Wou-Ki is not a resistance towards something concrete； neither is it abstraction for abstraction's sake. His works are actually closely related to his life experiences. They act as an odograph, faithfully recording the important events of his life, the hidden sorrows, his reactions to the outside world, his joy, his anguish, his hatred and his desire for peace. In fact, there is nothing more specific than this. Chinese painting heritage made it easier for him to express these real things in an abstract way.” 06.10.68 is not only an aesthetic presentation of his skills, but also a record of his grief. Love enriches his work's profound meaning and hidden connotations. This picture was used on the cover of Zao Wou-Ki Collection published in 1993 and was included in the first exhibition of his works in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in 1995. Its importance is self-evident. The appearance of 06.10.68 at this auction therefore provides an excellent opportunity for collectors.

Price estimate:
HKD: 15,000,000 - 25,000,000
USD: 1,910,800 - 3,184,700

Auction Result:
HKD : 17,400,000