Composition IV, from: Canto Pisan

Zao Wou-ki

Gilden's Art Gallery United Kingdom

Artwork details

Artist

Zao Wou-ki

Title

Composition IV, from: Canto Pisan

Description

Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered Etching and Aquatint in Colours on Japan Nacré Paper

Additional Information: This original etching and aquatint in colours is hand signed in pencil by the artist ""Zao Wou-Ki"" in Chinese and Pinyin at the lower right margin. It is hand numbered in pencil from the edition of 50, at the lower left margin. It was printed by Atelier Bellini, Paris and published by Pierre Belfond, Paris in 1972 in a total limited edition of 260 signed and numbered impressions. There were also 30 in Roman numerals on Japan nacre and an edition of 180 on Arches wove paper. The paper is folded along the central spine due to inclusion in the portfolio, the image is printed on the right hand leaf of the sheet.

Note: The Cantos are a collection of epic poems spanning 40 years of writing by one of America’s most controversial poets, Ezra Pound. The most studied and well-known section is the Pisan Cantos, which were written by the poet during his wartime incarceration following the American liberation of Italy. The Pisan Cantos are also significant for their inclusion of Chinese characters and other non-English languages in the core of the texts. Forcing the reader to address the ideas of expression and cultural understanding. With only three books permitted during his detention Pound selected a text by Confucius in the original language, a translation to English of the same text and a Chinese dictionary.

The Pisan Cantos are notable for their reliance on memory, particularly the literary and artistic circles once enjoyed by the poet in the early twentieth century. Zao Wou-Ki masterfully blended traditional Chinese expressionism with Western European abstraction to produce his important ‘Canto Pisan’. Eight magnificent etchings and aquatints with expressive and tonal colouring. With this series Wou-Ki continued his ongoing union of eastern and western ideas, finding a common visual language.

Literature: Ågerup, J. (1994). Zao Wou-Ki - The Graphic Work - A Catalogue Raisonné 1937-1995. Copenhagen: Heede & Moestrup.

Reference: Ågerup 221

Condition: Very good condition. Minor staining from hinging in the upper corners verso , faintly visible, recto.

Date

1972

Medium

Colour Lithograph

Edition

Signature

Signed

Catalogue Raisonne

Ågerup 221

Image

31.7 x 25.7 cm

Sheet

52 x 35 cm

Status

Available

Price

$4,000.00

About Zao Wou-Ki

Zao Wou-Ki (1921-2013) was born in Beijing and trained at the Hangzhou art academy before moving to Paris in 1948, where he became one of the leading figures of postwar lyrical abstraction. He took French citizenship in 1964. His work joins the Chinese ink tradition of landscape, space and breath to the colour and gesture of the School of Paris. Zao Wou-Ki prints carry that fusion into luminous, atmospheric compositions where forms seem to emerge from and dissolve into the paper.