Zao Wou-Ki, Henri Michaux

 

 

 

To mark its 40th anniversary, the Berthet-Aittouarès Gallery looks back on the wonderful and fruitful friendship that bound together two towering figures of post-war abstract art: Henri Michaux, a painter and poet born in Wallonia in 1899,

 

and Zao Wou-Ki, a Franco-Chinese painter and printmaker born in 1920, who, over the years right up until his death in 2020, developed paintings characterised by a strong and colourful lyrical abstraction.

 

Having arrived in Paris in 1948, Zao Wou-ki produced his first lithographs under the influence of Paul Klee, which earned the admiration of the writer and master of symbols. This marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship that would bind the two men together until Michaux’s death in 1984. From a delicate ink on paper piece (Mouvements, 1950) by Michaux to a watercolour—still narrative in style—by Zao Wou-ki from the same period, via the writer’s vast graphic compositions [photo], this is more than a dialogue; it is a bond of understanding… – L.B.