Zao Wou-ki & Ateliers De Ségriès - Plate "the Orchid", 1986 #1

Zao Wou-Ki & Ateliers de Ségriès - "The Orchid" Plate, 1986. Serigraph on Moustiers porcelain plate after a watercolor by the artist. Signed and dated at the bottom. Produced for the BSN group on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary in 1986 by the Ateliers de Ségriès in Moustiers, commissioned from Zao Wou-Ki by his friend Antoine Ribou. On the back, a dedication: "BSN exists, BSN will develop thanks to the instinct, imagination, and courage of all," signed Antoine. Diameter: 25 cm. Zao Wou-Ki was born in Beijing on February 1, 1920. In 1935, he passed the entrance exam for the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts, where he was appointed lecturer after six years of study; he held his first exhibition in 1941 in Chiang Kai-shek. It was in 1948 that he decided to settle in Paris. He then attended Othon Friesz's studio at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, as well as the École des Beaux-Arts. He met Sam Francis, Riopelle, Soulages, Hartung, Giacometti, and Vieira da Silva. In 1950, the poet Henri Michaux wrote a text on Zao Wou-Ki's early lithographs in a volume entitled *Lecture de huit lithographies de Zao Wou-Ki* (Reading Eight Lithographs by Zao Wou-Ki). Seeing the work of Paul Klee in Bern in 1951 led Zao Wou-Ki to take a radical turn toward abstraction. In 1962, Zao Wou-Ki created ten lithographs for André Malraux's *La Tentation de l'Occident* (The Temptation of the West). It was the latter who helped him obtain French citizenship two years later. In 1970, Zao Wou-Ki directed the seminar created by the painter Kokoschka at the Salzburg Music Festival. A selection of eighty prints from the Zao Wou-Ki donation was presented in 1979 at the Bibliothèque Nationale, with a special issue of "Nouvelles de l'Estampe" (Print News). In 1980, he was appointed professor of mural painting at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (National School of Decorative Arts). In 1984, the painter was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honor on the recommendation of the Minister of Culture. In 1985, he taught painting at his former school in Hangzhou to twenty-six young teachers from various academies in China. The year 1988 saw the publication of *Autoportrait* (Self-Portrait), an autobiography written in collaboration with Françoise Marquet. In 1993, Zao Wou-Ki was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour by the President of the French Republic. In 1994, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale of Painting of Japan. The jury consisted of Jacques Chirac, Helmut Schmidt, Amintore Fanfani, Edward Heath, Yasuhiro Nakasone, and David Rockefeller Jr. The award ceremony took place in October in Tokyo with the other laureates: Henri Dutilleux (music), Richard Serra (sculpture), John Gielgud (performing arts), and Charles Correa (architecture). In 1995, Zao Wou-Ki received the Science for Art Prize, created in Paris by the LVMH group (the prize was awarded to Steven Chu for science). In 1998, the painter designed a ceramic mural, produced in Sintra by Viuva Lameco Ceràmique for the "Atlantic" metro station in Lisbon. In 2001, Zao Wou-Ki received the Taylor Foundation Prize. Since 1941, exhibitions of Zao Wou-Ki's works have been held regularly in countries all over the world and in major museums, showcasing his many talents as a painter, cartoonist, engraver, lithographer, and illustrator. Zao Wou-Ki is one of the most illustrious representatives of lyrical abstraction. Through his work, he achieved a synthesis between the technical means of his Far Eastern heritage and the plastic and poetic ambition of Western lyrical abstraction. Knight of the Legion of Honour, Commander of the Legion of Honour, Officer of Arts and Letters, Commander of the National Order of Merit, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour