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Title:	Zao Wou-Ki: Watercolors and Ceramics
Date:	4/30/2023 - 7/16/2023
Address:	Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 4339 Park Avenue, Memphis, TN 38117
Location:	Memphis, TN
Hours:	Tuesday - Saturday: 10:00am - 5:00pm, Sunday: 1:00pm - 5:00pm, Third Thursdays: 10:00am - 8:00pm
Cost/Cover:	free
Web Page:	https://www.dixon.org/zao-wou-ki
Contact Info:	(901) 761-5250

Details:

Chinese-French artist Zao Wou-Ki’s lyrical watercolors and designs for ceramics blend the dynamic energy of Abstract Expressionism with the formal qualities of traditional Chinese calligraphy. Born in Beijing in 1920, he was named by his grandfather, who selected a moniker meaning “no limits,” an apt description of Zao’s approach to art and life. After graduating from the School of Fine Arts in Hangzhou and teaching in China for several years, in 1948, Zao moved to Paris, where he became enmeshed in the postwar art scene. He settled in Montparnasse, the Left Bank neighborhood that was home to a community of avant-garde artists, including the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, the American painter Sam Francis, and the French artist Jean Dubuffet. Amidst this intellectually stimulating milieu, Zao’s own artistic practice developed, and he began to embrace a freer, more expressionist style. In 1954, he produced his first purely abstract painting. In the United States, Abstract Expressionism was flourishing and artists such as Franz Kline were looking to Chinese calligraphy to inform their own emotive brushwork. But for Zao, calligraphy was not simply a passing influence; he once remarked, “Calligraphy is the original source and only guide for my painting.” Through his work, he attempted to identify a universal visual language that would supersede what he considered to be a false dichotomy between East and West.