Zao Wou-ki serves an irreplaceable role of the pioneer in the development of Chinese abstract paintings. A contemporary Chinese oil painter, Zao masterfully explores and amalgamates the temporal and spatial conceptions from the East and the West, bestowing inexhaustible muse upon his successors in the domain of abstract art.

In 1948, he sailed from China to the capital of art, Paris, and became a key member of European abstract expressionism. The friends he made then all become famous masters in the world of art. Born in Beijing and raised in Shanghai, Zao was steeped in the rich oriental tradition of calligraphy and painting, making him unique amongst his artist friends in the West. While other abstract painters were borrowing from oriental logograms to construct their aesthetics, Zao considered this approach too easy, and strenuously avoided the so-called chinoiserie in water-ink painting. Nevertheless, with his innate understanding of the profound poetry of Chinese aesthetics, he transcended the limitations of the oil medium with aplomb, allowing the sensibility of the two cultures to flow free on his canvas, and his fame in overseas gradually spread.

After the passing away of his beloved wife May in 1972, he took his first trip back to China, where he visited his mother and learned of her suffering and the death of his father from persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Upon returning to Paris, Zao found himself unable to pick up his paintbrush and spent his days wallowing in drink, kept away from his canvas by a confusion of moods and emotions. As a way of distracting himself from his gloom, one day, he took out the Xuan paper, brush and ink he had brought back from China and started painting mindlessly. With this act, his childhood experience gradually reemerged. Initiated in calligraphy by his family, Zao had studied at the Hangzhou National Academy of Art where he developed his skills of observation, particularly of nature. The long abandoned movement familiar since childhood would instill in Zao the power to paint again. Zao said, "Water-ink and paper gave me the clarity to achieve tranquility. They offered me a space not easily accessible in oil painting, a most economic means by which I could stretch out unexpectedly, to astonishing effect. I reached a world of incomplete perception: touched directly by empty space and silence, I became more confident, and could continue to pursue unknown new realms and move forward in oil painting."

(Wai-lim Yip, Dialogues With Contemporary Artists-Birth and Growth of Chinese Modern Oil Paintings, Tung Ta Book Company, Taipei, December 1987-first edition, February 1996-second edition, p.41).

Many art critics agree that Zao entered a new phase in his art in 1973, influenced crucially by his "re-acquaintance with water-ink painting." Zao himself concedes the obvious transformation, "Je sais qu'à partir de 1973 ma peinture a changé car mes amis me l'ont souvent dit, et surtout écrit. Peut-être avais-je atteint la maturité, le moment où l'on profite de ce qui a été engrangé et où tout deient plus facile, après les longs efforts et le travail acharné?" "Ce que je sais aussi c'est que j'aime de plus en plus peindre, que j'ai de plus en plus de choses à dire, avec l'incessante peur de me répérter. Je peins ma proper vire mais je cherche aussi à peindre un espace invisible, celui du rêve, d'un lieu où l'on se sent toujours en harmonie, même dans des forms agitées de forces contraires."

(Zao Wou-ki & Françoise Marquet, Zao Wou-ki Autoportrait, éditions Fayard, 1988 p. 157).

Zao's previous work from the 1960s to early 1970s was marked by strokes of black, brown and other cool tones, trembling lines, majestic power and rhythmic movement. Since the mid-1970s, his oil paintings became brighter and more resplendent in color, as well as wider in size. The addition of water-ink style staining, the pursuit of harmony with greater focus on space and light, and hints of idyllic calm all signaled a new phase in his artistic journey.

Orange-yellow and gold formed Zao's main palette during the 1970s, the earthy, sunny colors a reflection of his search for warmth and tranquility, guiding him out of his grief. The use of orange-yellow as the main tone could be seen first in the 1972 work created in memory of his wife, "En Mémoire de May." Considered the most important piece of Zao's 1970s oeuvre, it is housed in the National Museum of Modern Art, in Paris' Pompidou Centre. This painting, "28.4.75," is similar to "En Mémoire de May" from three years earlier in the choice of color and staining, though an oblong form is adopted.

Zao has said that art is how he lives and chases his dreams, so the details of his life are naturally represented in his paintings. In "28.4.75," the large spread of orange-yellow in the background is like Mother Nature, nurturing all life; the moist haze meanders like a river, washing away all worldly cares; the soft, harmonious contrast between the ethereal and the corporeal recalls the evening sunlight that dyes the sky red, its gracefulness captivating the wanderer, making him linger. In the spring of 1975, Zao rushed back to China to see his dying mother, and later finished this piece named after its date of completion. By then, Zao was already in his fifties, the age when one should understand the ways of the world. Having experienced life's many struggles, he desired nothing more than spiritual peace – the corners may have hidden darkness and pain, but they could be contained by infinite tenderness and softened into a poetic space.

Since its debut at Galerie Kutter in Luxemburg in the mid-1970s, the oil piece "28.4.75" has remained treasured in that country for over three decades. It was twice included in Zao Wou-Ki, the complete collection of Zao's oil paintings edited by the art critic Jean Leymarie, in 1978 and 1986, as a classic representation of 1970s art.