Zao and his wife pursued their own careers, their son having stayed in China with Zao's parents. In the mid-1950s, they were divorced. In 1957, Zao decided to visit the United States where his younger brother Chao Wu-Wai was living in Montclair, New Jersey, close to the art scene of New York City. He wanted to learn more about "pop art". While in the US, he painted seven canvases at his brother's house. There are relatively few items dating from that year. Years later, the largest canvas was given by his brother, Chao Wu-Wai, to the Detroit Institute of Arts. He left the U.S. after a six-week stay, traveling to Tokyo and then to Hong Kong, where he met his second wife Chan May-Kan, a film actress who had two children from her first marriage. Under the influence of Zao, she became a successful sculptor. In 1972, she committed suicide at age 41 due to mental illness. In 1972, he also visited his family in China who he had not seen since 1948. In 1997, he married his third wife Françoise Marquet, who now serves as president of the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation.
Career
Zao's works, influenced by Paul Klee, are orientated to abstraction. He names them with the date in which he finishes them, and in them, masses of colours appear to materialise a creating world, like a Big Bang, where light structures the canvas. He worked formats in triptychs and diptychs. While his work was stylistically similar to the Abstract Expressionists whom he met while travelling in New York, he was influenced by Impressionism. Zao Wou-Ki stated that he had been influenced by the works of Matisse, Picasso and Cézanne. His meetings with Henri Michaux pushed him to review his Indian ink techniques, always based in Chinese traditional drawings. Zao was a member of the Académie des beaux-arts, and was considered to have been one of the most successful Chinese painters during his lifetime. In 1982, he was invited to paint for the Fragrant Hills Hotel in Beijing, designed by I. M. Pei. I. M. Pei had a fellowship to Europe in the early 1950s and he met Wou-Ki at Galerie Claude Bernard, the gallery that represented Wou-Ki. In 1983, he returned to his alma mater, the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou to give lectures. Former French President Jacques Chirac was offered a painting by Zao Wou-Ki by his ministers during their last meeting. By the end of his life Zao had stopped producing new paintings due to health problems. He died on 9 April 2013 at his home in Switzerland.
Between 2009 and 2014, the value of his work tripled, leading to a scarcity of paintings and to prices rising even higher.
2017
Zao Wou-ki’s 29.01.64 was sold for HK$202.6m at Christie's in Hong Kong, setting a new auction record for the artist and the world record for an oil painting by any Asian artist.The record for the artist was previously held by 29.09.64, another large painting that was sold for HK$153m at Christie’s Hong Kong in May this year.
2018
Juin-Octobre 1985, the largest size that Zao Wou-ki ever worked on, was sold for HK$510m after premium, setting the record for the most valuable painting sold in Hong Kong auctions, as well as the auction record for an oil painting by an Asian artist.
