Celebrating one of Zao Wou-Ki’s most monumental oil paintings

Triptyque 1987-1988, a monumental oil painting spread across three canvases, brings together a rich plethora of references, from Claude Monet’s gardens and ponds at Giverny, to the use of colour seen in works of Henri Matisse. As a child in China, Zao collected prints and posters of Matisse’s work.

The work, which measures two by almost 5 metres in size, has been shown internationally by museums, including the Tapei Fine Arts Museum, the Fundación Cultural Televisa in Mexico, the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan, the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts, the Guandong Museum of Art in China and the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.

Triptyque 1987-1988 is the second-largest painting by the artist ever to be offered at auction, and sold for for HK$178,000,000 in Hong Kong on 25 May 2019.