11th December 2025 – (Hong Kong) M+, the museum of contemporary visual culture in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, will stage Zao Wou‑Ki: Master Printmaker, the first major exhibition in Asia dedicated to the graphic oeuvre of the Chinese‑French master (1920–2013). Running in the Main Hall Gallery from 13th December 2025 to 3rd May 2026, the showcase traces five decades of Zao’s printmaking, from 1949 to 2000, revealing how the medium underpinned his ceaseless technical experimentation and global collaborations across literature and the arts. The exhibition is supported by Lead Sponsor BNP Paribas and Major Sponsors AIA Hong Kong and Cathay.
Co‑curated by M+ and the Zao Wou‑Ki Foundation, the exhibition sets out fresh perspectives on Zao’s prolific engagement with printmaking. Nearly 180 works from the museum’s significant holdings—encompassing prints, illustrated books, works on paper and archival material, largely acquired through a major donation by Madame Françoise Marquet‑Zao—are brought together with further gifts from Zao’s daughter, Sin‑May Roy Zao, and more than fifty loans from international museums and private collections. Landmark pieces include 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).
Zao Wou‑Ki: Master Printmaker positions printmaking as a core pillar of Zao’s practice, illuminating its influence on his abstract painting. Spanning his first experiments in Paris at the end of the 1940s through to late career works, the exhibition unfolds across three sections. Encountering Printmaking charts his arrival in Paris in 1948, when, already versed in Chinese woodblock techniques, he learned lithography and etching, describing printmaking as an almost playful counterpoint to oil painting. Towards Abstraction follows his shift to elemental, imagined topographies and a decisive embrace of abstraction, marked by techniques such as drypoint, sugar‑lift and aquatint, and animated by gestural lines and vivid colour that resonate with Chinese ink and calligraphic traditions. No Boundaries presents his mature synthesis of Eastern and Western idioms from the late 1970s onwards, as he pursued Taoist ideas of harmony and balance with renewed freedom and increasingly luminous palettes.
Three side narratives deepen the reading of Zao’s methods and networks. What is printmaking? introduces the tools and processes behind the works. How does printmaking bring people together? maps Zao’s international circle and creative exchanges. How do poetry and prints enrich each other? explores the dialogue between text and image in his artist books and collaborations.
Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director of M+, said the exhibition broadens understanding of Zao’s contribution to twentieth‑century abstraction by foregrounding prints, books and archival materials, and thanked Madame Françoise Marquet‑Zao and the Zao Wou‑Ki Foundation for their support. Françoise Marquet‑Zao called the show a tribute to her husband’s lifelong commitment to printmaking’s possibilities and underlined the Foundation’s collaboration with M+ to sustain his legacy through research and public engagement. Doryun Chong, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of M+, highlighted how printmaking served as a laboratory for Zao’s ideas—ranging from aquatint’s tonal subtleties to the assertive marks of drypoint—compressing vast spatial concepts into intimate formats. Dr Wu Mo, Sigg Curator at M+, and Yann Hendgen, the Foundation’s Art Director, said the curatorial approach brings together key bodies of work and archives to illuminate Zao’s technical decisions and the poetic geographies of his abstraction.
An opening ceremony will be held this evening, attended by representatives from M+, the Zao Wou‑Ki Foundation, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, sponsors and donors.
A full programme of public events will accompany the exhibition. On Saturday, 13 December 2025, an opening talk, Zao Wou‑Ki’s Journey in Hong Kong, will examine the artist’s ties to the city during his visits between 1958 and 1965, featuring curators Dr Wu Mo and Yann Hendgen alongside art historian Dr Ankeney Weitz. From late January through to May, the Open Print Studio at the Learning Hub will offer weekend drop‑ins and workshops for young people, schools and community groups, with no prior experience required. Eight Family Days between January and April 2026 will feature educator‑led, drop‑in sessions, while an M+ Young People Meet‑Up on Saturday, 24 January 2026, led by artist Cheung Tsz Ki, will introduce etching techniques for transforming travel photographs into abstract prints. Curator‑ and conservator‑led tours will provide behind‑the‑scenes insights, with tailored programmes for schools, non‑profits and visitors with diverse needs. During the Easter holidays in 2026, a Children’s Creative Easter Holiday Camp will invite participants to create illustrated books inspired by themes of journeys, friendships and emotions.
A substantial bilingual publication, Zao Wou‑Ki: Master Printmaker, accompanies the exhibition, featuring essays by international scholars on technique, visual language and the social dimensions of printmaking, as well as a chronology and excerpts from illustrated poetry books. The M+ Shop will launch authorised merchandise inspired by Zao’s lyrical abstraction, including tote bags, stationery, paper incense, red packets, art prints, limited‑edition lacquerware and trays.
Single‑price admission covers all M+ gallery exhibitions, including Zao Wou‑Ki: Master Printmaker. Adult tickets are HKD 190, with concessions at HKD 100 for eligible visitors; children aged six and under enter free. Kid and Adult Combo Tickets are available at HKD 250 (one adult and one child aged 7–11) or HKD 400 (two adults and one child). Tickets can be purchased via the M+ and WestK websites and app, Cityline, China Travel Service (Hong Kong) Limited, Fliggy, Klook, KKday and Trip.com. M+ Memberships provide unlimited exhibition entry and additional benefits, with individual annual membership at HKD 600 and dual at HKD 1,000; Young and Senior Members receive half‑price rates, while Family Membership is HKD 1,200. Patron tiers offer expanded access, guest privileges and event invitations.
About the artist: Born in 1920, Zao Wou‑Ki studied Chinese painting and calligraphy before graduating from the National College of Art in Hangzhou (now the China Academy of Art), where he learned under Lin Fengmian, Wu Dayu and other reformist painters. After moving to Paris in 1948, he developed a signature language of lyrical abstraction, fusing Chinese influences with oil painting and layered print techniques. In the 1970s he revisited ink as a parallel to his oils, and maintained close ties with China, including commissions such as two large works for I. M. Pei’s Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing (1982). Naturalised as a French citizen in 1964, Zao was honoured as an Officier and later Grand officier of the Légion d’honneur, received Japan’s Praemium Imperiale for Painting in 1994, and was elected to the Académie des Beaux‑Arts in 2002. He died in Switzerland in 2013. His works reside in major museum collections across Europe, North America and Asia.
