$70,000
Estimate: $50,000 - $80,000
Auction: May 8, 2019 1:00:00 PM EDT
Signed, signed again in Chinese and dated 54 bottom right, titled and inscribed with color notations verso, watercolor and ink on paper.
9 7/8 x 12 7/8 in. (25.1 x 32.7cm)
Provenance: Cadby-Birch Gallery, New York, New York.
The Collection of Helen and Phil Casady (acquired directly from the above circa 1954).
By family descent.
The Collection of Robert L. Patten, Houston, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico (acquired circa 1970).
By family descent.
Private Collection, Pennsylvania.
EXHIBITED:
"Works from the Casady Collection," New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October, 1970.
note:
This lot is accompanied by a photo-certificate of authenticity issued by the Fondation Zao Wou-Ki, and signed by Françoise Marquet, the artist's widow and President of the Fondation Zao Wou-Ki.
Born and trained in the arts in his native China, Zao Wou-Ki moved to Paris in 1948. There, exposed to the philosophies of abstraction and expressionism espoused by many of the modern masters whom he befriended and worked alongside, Zao developed a unique style that balanced – often with breathtakingly harmonious results - Eastern and Western visual traditions. “Ciel de Paris” is an excellent example of the work that Zao created during his early years in the French capital. Rendered in ink and watercolor on paper, this intimate drawing displays the delicate brushwork and sensitive hand so admired in the artist’s very best drawings. As an art critic in the New York Times remarked in a 2016 review, “throughout his life, and in whatever style, he seems to have always been more comfortable on paper than canvas…”1 This affinity for working on paper is evident in the present piece, in which so many visual elements play in tandem with one another. Zao delicately layers his inks, creating softly diffuse backgrounds and energetic swipes of ink across the page, interspersing them with tiny bursts of blue dots amidst gently drawn abstract forms. Soft and elegant, and yet radiating with a quiet energy, “Ciel de Paris” captivates its viewer. Freeman’s is delighted to bring to auction this fine drawing, which has been in the same family collection for nearly fifty years.
1. Roberta Smith, “Abstract Fusion Master,” The New York Times, September 8, 2016.