Chinese modern master Zao Wouki to feature in US retrospective
Zao Wouki retrospective planned in New York amid renewal of American interest in Asian art
Americans will be given an opportunity to rekindle their interest in Chinese modern master Zao Wouki in the first US retrospective exhibition of the late abstract painter.
The Asia Society, which has begun planning for the event to be held in about four years in New York, says it reflects growing US interest in Asia and a desire to rediscover its art history.
Melissa Chiu, senior vice-president for global arts and cultural programmes at the Asia Society in New York, said Zao was very well-known in the US in the 1960s and 1970s, but interest then waned.
"Although he was an important figure in Asia and to some extent in Europe, in America he was largely forgotten," Chiu said. She was speaking while in Hong Kong for a gala at the society's Hong Kong centre last night, which kicked off a week of art madness surrounding the Art Basel events that start on Thursday.
Chiu said the exhibition, only at an initial planning stage, would be held in collaboration with a liberal-arts school, Colby College, which runs an art museum in Maine. A detailed announcement is expected in six months.
Born in 1921 in Beijing, Zao studied painting at the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts before settling in Paris in 1948.