M+ in Hong Kong is presenting “Zao Wou‑Ki: Master Printmaker,” the first major Asian retrospective devoted entirely to the graphic work of Zao Wou‑Ki (1920–2013). Spanning more than five decades of creative output, from 1949 to 2000, the exhibition traces Zao’s lifelong engagement with printmaking, revealing it not as a secondary pursuit, but as a vital and experimental dimension of his artistic practice — one that enabled his unique synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions and facilitated profound collaborations across continents.

Co‑curated by M+ and the Zao Wou‑Ki Foundation, the show brings together nearly 180 works from a major gift by Madame Françoise Marquet‑Zao, the artist’s widow and chief curator and president of the Foundation, alongside donations from Zao’s daughter Sin‑May Roy Zao and more than 50 loans from international museums and private collections. The installation includes prints, illustrated books, works on paper and archival materials that trace Zao’s printmaking practice from his first experiments in Paris in 1949 through to 2000, revealing a practice as exploratory and rigorous as his celebrated canvases.

The exhibition is organized into three sections. In “Encountering Printmaking,” visitors see the artist’s initial immersion in Parisian techniques — lithography, etching and aquatint — combined with a formative familiarity with Chinese woodblock methods learned in his native China. Zao later described printmaking as “almost a game,” a playful, unpredictable counterpoint to oil painting that opened new modes of mark‑making.

The second section, “Towards Abstraction,” presents how Zao’s prints began to visualize elemental forces and imagined landscapes in the 1950s. Embracing drypoint, sugar lift and other intaglio methods, he deployed gestural line and saturated color in compositions that channel calligraphic energy into lyrical abstractions.

The “No Boundaries” section highlights later work from the 1970s onward, when Zao achieved a mature synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions. These late prints are notable for brighter palettes, freer compositional rhythms and a Taoist sense of balance that unites technique and poetics.

Highlights include seminal works such as “Lecture par Henri Michaux de huit lithographies de Zao Wou‑Ki” (1950), “Piazza Siena” (1951) and “À la gloire de l’image et art poétique” (1977). Together, the exhibited materials make clear that Zao’s printmaking was not secondary but integral — compressing vast spatial ideas into intimate formats, enabling collaborations with writers and cultural figures, and helping to position Zao as a transnational figure whose work resonated across Europe, Asia and the United States.

Zao Wou‑Ki occupies a singular place in 20th‑century abstraction: a Chinese‑born artist fully at home in Paris who never relinquished the visual memory of ink and calligraphy. “Zao Wou‑Ki: Master Printmaker” invites audiences to encounter the prints that sustained his imagination and to appreciate printmaking as a vital engine of modern artistic exchange.

Dates: Until May 3

Venue: Main Hall Gallery, M+, West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong(SD News)