ZAO Wou-Ki - Marine Life: Algae - Signed Silkscreen on Porcelain

Screen print : Screen printing, also known as silkscreen, serigraphy, and serigraph printing - from latin "Sericum (silk) and greek "grapheion" (writing) - is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil to receive a desired image. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image into a substrate. It is possible to use different meshes, for different colors, and create multi-colored works. In the field of art, it is important to know how many prints have been made. The total number of prints is usually written on the print (e.g 20/200).
Zao Wou-Ki : is a painter born in Pékin and naturalized French in 1953. He is one of the most renowned figure of the lyric abstraction representant of Lyrical Abstraction. Between 1935-1941 he studies in Hangzhou Fine-arts School, at the end of these studies he relized his first exhibition in Chang-King. He settled in Paris in 1948 and frequented Othon Friesz's workshop at The Grande-Chaumière academy, and The Fine-Art School. He met Sam Francis, Riopelle, Soulages, Hartung, Giacometti, Vieira da Silva. In 1950 the poet Henri Michaux wrote a text about Zao Wou-Ki's first lithographs. Paul Klee's work seen in Bern in 1951 radically steers Zao Wou-Ki toward abstraction. In 1962 the painter created ten litographs for André Malraux "La tentation de l'Occident" (The Wester temptation). In 1980, he is appointed wall painting teacher at The "École Nationale Supérieure des arts Décoratifs" (National Superior School of decorative arts). The artist won several prices : he is named laureate of the Praemium Imperiale Award of Painting of Japan in 1994, the following year he received The "Prix de Science pour l’Art" (created by LVMH). And the Taylor Foundation Price in 2001. In 1998, the painter creates a wall panel in ceramic, realized in Sintra by Viuva Lameco Ceràmique for The "Atlantic" metro station in Lisboa. Through his work, he achieved the synthesis between the technical means of his Far East heritage and the plastic and poetic ambition of the western Lyrical Abstraction.