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拍品专文
“I wanted to paint what is not visible, the breath of life, the wind, the movement, the life of shapes, the blossoming of colours and their fusion.” —Zao Wou-Ki
Painted in 1963, 17.3.36 unfolds in a rare palette of bright red sweeping across a monumental canvas. The brushstrokes gallop in the brilliance of oil paint, leaving vaporous layers that evoke an interior space charged with tension and depth. Based on the records in the artist’s catalogue raisonné, there are only 18 works from the 1960s executed in the same palette and of similar or larger dimensions. Of these, only seven have yet to appear at auction and not in a museum collection.
The 1960s marked the golden age of Zao Wou-Ki’s artistic creation. While he was living in Paris, his brushwork invariably resonated with the essence of Chinese culture. After the Oracle Bone period, he gradually moved away from the use of symbols, painting with an unfettered freedom that characterises the Hurricane period. This transformation of his artistic language was driven not only by his evolution in style and technique, but also by his immersion into the international art scene. In 1957, Zao travelled to the US for the first time, where he met major artists such as Franz Kline, Philip Guston, and Mark Rothko. He was deeply inspired by his visits to various museums and by the works of the abstract expressionist masters, while travelling across the US with his close friend Pierre Soulages. The most significant outcome of this trip was his signing with Samuel Kootz, who became a champion of Zao’s work in the US. In 1959, the Kootz Gallery presented Zao’s first solo exhibition in New York. From then on, he visited New York almost annually, working closely with Kootz until 1966.
While Galerie de France, a long-time collaborator of Zao, continued to anchor his presence in Europe, the Kootz Gallery promoted his work in the US, propelling the artist to fame on both sides of the Atlantic. With these sources of support, Zao reached the zenith of his artistic creation and career in the 1960s. Inspired by the abstract expressionists, his artistic language matured swiftly; with the encouragement of Kootz, he began working with large-sized canvases, his compositions swelling in both scale and momentum, and his brushwork ever more vigorous. The present work was included in the artist’s first major retrospective in Europe, held in 1965 at Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. The exhibition brought together many of his pieces, including 29.09.64 and 22.07.64, two iconic works that remain among the artist’s highest-selling works at auction. Two other masterpieces featured in the exhibition now reside in the collections of Museum Folkwang and Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 1968, he held a large-scale solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art (currently San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), which further cemented his stature on the international art scene.
Amidst this constant passage between Paris and New York, Zao’s brushwork came to embody an ever more forceful and unrestrained energy. 17.3.63 unfolds in a striking chromatic contrast of crimson, ink black, and yellow ochre. The combination of red, black, and yellow has long been associated with medieval European coats of arms and banners, and it symbolises resilience, bravery and glory. The canvas is engulfed in surging red, as if to condense and preserve within its surface the fervour of that moment in time. Veins of yellow ochre connect the sky to the earth, charting the instant when heaven and earth converge. On the left, sweeping black brushstrokes run diagonally from upper left to lower right, evoking the momentum of freehand brushwork in calligraphy. The strokes, interwoven yet powerful, create an illusion of depth in the composition. Amidst this tempest of unbridled energy, the painting “breathes” through areas of unpainted space within the searing red, allowing tension and repose, movement and stillness, to coexist. This sense of breath not only immerses the viewer in its force, but also brings them towards the cultural roots of its dazzling colours.
Red has been revered by cultures across the world since antiquity—symbolising life, flame, the continuity of bloodline, and intense emotion. From the crimson of Pompeii frescoes to the red ochre of Dunhuang murals, red has always stirred primal, untainted religious feeling in its viewer. In the grand narratives of the Dunhuang caves, red is an indispensable visual language: firstly, there was an abundance of hematite and ochre along the Silk Road, providing readily available sources of pigments; secondly, red signifies at once the majesty and sanctity of Buddhist teaching, and the enduring vitality of fire and life itself. Painters frequently employed red and red ochre to depict garments, haloes, and ritual scenes, set against blue, yellow, and black to create an atmosphere both solemn and dramatic. In these murals, the colour red is not mere ornament, but a marker of narrative junctures: through contrasts of colour blocks and directed focal points, red guides the viewer into the heart of the religious story. Speaking of the use of colour and texture, Zao once remarked: “In paintings from the Northern Wei period, not a single colour is repeated — they truly deserve careful appreciation. The variations in red tones create a sense of spatial depth, with the outer areas and background rendered in deeper, more tranquil hues. When painting, one should avoid repeating color tones, because the concept of beauty is diverse.”
The reds in Northern Wei murals are never of a single tone, but applied through thin washes and heavy layering, building up subtle variations of light and darkness, thickness and translucence. 17.3.63 continues this tradition, drawing inspiration from the most widely used colours in Dunhuang murals—blue, yellow, black, white, and red. Three of these colours appear in this canvas, where the artist, using oil paint, recreates the permeation and layering of mineral pigments. The reds are rendered in varying brushstrokes and layers, as they simultaneously emerge as vessels of feeling and as builders of space. In contrast to the Dunhuang murals, which were conceived to embody religious stories, Zao drew from the use of colour in the murals while consciously transforming sensory perception into pure expression, retaining only the force of colour and brushwork. This approach mirrors his departure from the Oracle Bone period and the use of symbols, and his transition into the Hurricane period—using the sheer energy of colour and brushwork to create spatial depth and emotional tension.
In 17.3.63, the fiery crimson, the cold ink black, and the sturdy brown ochre accentuate one another, with lines constructing the painting’s spatial structure, echoing the colour philosophy in Northern Wei murals. Dunhuang murals emphasise decorative detail and flatness of the picture plane; unlike Western classical paintings, which rely on chiaroscuro to create three-dimensionality, they achieve harmony through contrasts of colours and colour blocks—red against black, red against yellow—divided by lines that balance conflict with equilibrium, yielding a visual effect both rich and unified. This sensitivity towards spaces and contrast recalls the impact of Matisse’s work when Zao encountered it during his early days in Paris.
After arriving in Paris in 1948, Zao visited Louvre and other museums across the city, taking inspiration from the great masters. Among them, Matisse had a particularly profound influence on him. In a letter written to his friend, Matisse mentioned that “in the work of the Orientals the drawing of the empty spaces left around the leaves counted as much as the drawing of the leaves themselves.” (Rebecca Daniels, Henri Matisse’s stained glass window ‘La Rosace’ (1954), London, p. 614) In 17.03.63, the artist tempers and cleaves the red expanse with incisive, cool strokes, opening spaces that echo Matisse’s “empty spaces”, and, like the techniques of the Northern Wei murals, create a harmonious yet powerful sense of movement.
17.3.63 encapsulates Zao’s creative energy during his golden era in the 1960s, while its language of colour opens up a profound dialogue between Eastern and Western art across millennia. Crimson, yellow ochre, and ink black intertwine, carrying within them the cultural memories of Northern Wei and Dunhuang, and the flowing momentum of cursive script; they also reflect the modern pulses of Paris and New York, and an engagement with and contemplation on abstract expressionism. With its surging colours and layered brushstrokes, the work contains a restless, burning tension—as though still breathing, still aflame—inviting the viewer to linger between visual impact and spiritual resonance.
Painted in 1963, 17.3.36 unfolds in a rare palette of bright red sweeping across a monumental canvas. The brushstrokes gallop in the brilliance of oil paint, leaving vaporous layers that evoke an interior space charged with tension and depth. Based on the records in the artist’s catalogue raisonné, there are only 18 works from the 1960s executed in the same palette and of similar or larger dimensions. Of these, only seven have yet to appear at auction and not in a museum collection.
The 1960s marked the golden age of Zao Wou-Ki’s artistic creation. While he was living in Paris, his brushwork invariably resonated with the essence of Chinese culture. After the Oracle Bone period, he gradually moved away from the use of symbols, painting with an unfettered freedom that characterises the Hurricane period. This transformation of his artistic language was driven not only by his evolution in style and technique, but also by his immersion into the international art scene. In 1957, Zao travelled to the US for the first time, where he met major artists such as Franz Kline, Philip Guston, and Mark Rothko. He was deeply inspired by his visits to various museums and by the works of the abstract expressionist masters, while travelling across the US with his close friend Pierre Soulages. The most significant outcome of this trip was his signing with Samuel Kootz, who became a champion of Zao’s work in the US. In 1959, the Kootz Gallery presented Zao’s first solo exhibition in New York. From then on, he visited New York almost annually, working closely with Kootz until 1966.
While Galerie de France, a long-time collaborator of Zao, continued to anchor his presence in Europe, the Kootz Gallery promoted his work in the US, propelling the artist to fame on both sides of the Atlantic. With these sources of support, Zao reached the zenith of his artistic creation and career in the 1960s. Inspired by the abstract expressionists, his artistic language matured swiftly; with the encouragement of Kootz, he began working with large-sized canvases, his compositions swelling in both scale and momentum, and his brushwork ever more vigorous. The present work was included in the artist’s first major retrospective in Europe, held in 1965 at Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. The exhibition brought together many of his pieces, including 29.09.64 and 22.07.64, two iconic works that remain among the artist’s highest-selling works at auction. Two other masterpieces featured in the exhibition now reside in the collections of Museum Folkwang and Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 1968, he held a large-scale solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art (currently San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), which further cemented his stature on the international art scene.
Amidst this constant passage between Paris and New York, Zao’s brushwork came to embody an ever more forceful and unrestrained energy. 17.3.63 unfolds in a striking chromatic contrast of crimson, ink black, and yellow ochre. The combination of red, black, and yellow has long been associated with medieval European coats of arms and banners, and it symbolises resilience, bravery and glory. The canvas is engulfed in surging red, as if to condense and preserve within its surface the fervour of that moment in time. Veins of yellow ochre connect the sky to the earth, charting the instant when heaven and earth converge. On the left, sweeping black brushstrokes run diagonally from upper left to lower right, evoking the momentum of freehand brushwork in calligraphy. The strokes, interwoven yet powerful, create an illusion of depth in the composition. Amidst this tempest of unbridled energy, the painting “breathes” through areas of unpainted space within the searing red, allowing tension and repose, movement and stillness, to coexist. This sense of breath not only immerses the viewer in its force, but also brings them towards the cultural roots of its dazzling colours.
Red has been revered by cultures across the world since antiquity—symbolising life, flame, the continuity of bloodline, and intense emotion. From the crimson of Pompeii frescoes to the red ochre of Dunhuang murals, red has always stirred primal, untainted religious feeling in its viewer. In the grand narratives of the Dunhuang caves, red is an indispensable visual language: firstly, there was an abundance of hematite and ochre along the Silk Road, providing readily available sources of pigments; secondly, red signifies at once the majesty and sanctity of Buddhist teaching, and the enduring vitality of fire and life itself. Painters frequently employed red and red ochre to depict garments, haloes, and ritual scenes, set against blue, yellow, and black to create an atmosphere both solemn and dramatic. In these murals, the colour red is not mere ornament, but a marker of narrative junctures: through contrasts of colour blocks and directed focal points, red guides the viewer into the heart of the religious story. Speaking of the use of colour and texture, Zao once remarked: “In paintings from the Northern Wei period, not a single colour is repeated — they truly deserve careful appreciation. The variations in red tones create a sense of spatial depth, with the outer areas and background rendered in deeper, more tranquil hues. When painting, one should avoid repeating color tones, because the concept of beauty is diverse.”
The reds in Northern Wei murals are never of a single tone, but applied through thin washes and heavy layering, building up subtle variations of light and darkness, thickness and translucence. 17.3.63 continues this tradition, drawing inspiration from the most widely used colours in Dunhuang murals—blue, yellow, black, white, and red. Three of these colours appear in this canvas, where the artist, using oil paint, recreates the permeation and layering of mineral pigments. The reds are rendered in varying brushstrokes and layers, as they simultaneously emerge as vessels of feeling and as builders of space. In contrast to the Dunhuang murals, which were conceived to embody religious stories, Zao drew from the use of colour in the murals while consciously transforming sensory perception into pure expression, retaining only the force of colour and brushwork. This approach mirrors his departure from the Oracle Bone period and the use of symbols, and his transition into the Hurricane period—using the sheer energy of colour and brushwork to create spatial depth and emotional tension.
In 17.3.63, the fiery crimson, the cold ink black, and the sturdy brown ochre accentuate one another, with lines constructing the painting’s spatial structure, echoing the colour philosophy in Northern Wei murals. Dunhuang murals emphasise decorative detail and flatness of the picture plane; unlike Western classical paintings, which rely on chiaroscuro to create three-dimensionality, they achieve harmony through contrasts of colours and colour blocks—red against black, red against yellow—divided by lines that balance conflict with equilibrium, yielding a visual effect both rich and unified. This sensitivity towards spaces and contrast recalls the impact of Matisse’s work when Zao encountered it during his early days in Paris.
After arriving in Paris in 1948, Zao visited Louvre and other museums across the city, taking inspiration from the great masters. Among them, Matisse had a particularly profound influence on him. In a letter written to his friend, Matisse mentioned that “in the work of the Orientals the drawing of the empty spaces left around the leaves counted as much as the drawing of the leaves themselves.” (Rebecca Daniels, Henri Matisse’s stained glass window ‘La Rosace’ (1954), London, p. 614) In 17.03.63, the artist tempers and cleaves the red expanse with incisive, cool strokes, opening spaces that echo Matisse’s “empty spaces”, and, like the techniques of the Northern Wei murals, create a harmonious yet powerful sense of movement.
17.3.63 encapsulates Zao’s creative energy during his golden era in the 1960s, while its language of colour opens up a profound dialogue between Eastern and Western art across millennia. Crimson, yellow ochre, and ink black intertwine, carrying within them the cultural memories of Northern Wei and Dunhuang, and the flowing momentum of cursive script; they also reflect the modern pulses of Paris and New York, and an engagement with and contemplation on abstract expressionism. With its surging colours and layered brushstrokes, the work contains a restless, burning tension—as though still breathing, still aflame—inviting the viewer to linger between visual impact and spiritual resonance.