This volume, the first to explore this major artist's experiments in watercolor and his interesting and beautiful forays into ceramic decoration, features a brief note by Françoise Marquet-Zao. Zao Wou-Ki (1920?2013) was the first artist of the Chinese diaspora to achieve international recognition and was one of France's most important painters of the post-war era and beyond. His large abstract canvases were in step with those of New York School artists of the late 1940s and 50s and emerged from the growing international impulse for non-objective painting. Zao married western vanguard painting with Chinese traditions of calligraphy and ink-drawing and in doing so created a powerful personal aesthetic that was uniquely his own. Drawn largely from European private collections, the works of art in this catalog have almost never been exhibited before and were deeply personal to the artist. Zao worked in watercolor throughout his long life and this catalogue features examples from as early as 1960. But during his last years, the artist rediscovered the medium with newfound enthusiasm and turned increasingly to nature as the source of inspiration. In 2008, he gave up oil-painting entirely, and for the next two years, watercolor was his primary form of expression. The ceramics consist of two main groups ? plates produced in the late 1970s in association with Sèvres, bearing designs created by Zao expressly for this purpose, and later designs from the 2000s painted directly on vases, bowls and plates that were subsequently editioned by Maison Bernardaud in Limoges. AUTHORS: Gilles Chazal is the former director of the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris Françoise Marquet-Zao is the widow of the artist, and a former curator at the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris SELLING POINTS: . Chinese-born French abstract painter, Zao Wou-Ki, was one of the leading figures in post-War painting in Paris . Watercolour was always present in Zao's work, but it was only at the end of his long career that it took priority as an expressive vehicle. This is the first volume to explore this major artists' experiments in watercolour . It also examines Zao's interesting and beautiful forays into ceramic decoration . While the work of Zao Wou-Ki is well known in France, it is increasingly sought after in the United States, China, and Hong Kong. However there is nothing else in any language that offers such an intimate glimpse into the artist's work in watercolour 100 colour illustrations
