€2,691,800

This long-awaited oil on canvas by Zao Wou-ki registered €2,691,800, exceeding its estimate. Including the buyer's premium, it posted a French record for the artist. The title/date of the one here, "24.10.68", places it in a year full of upheavals, 1968, which involved both social and political unrest in France and a personal tragedy for the artist. His second wife, May, suffered from fragile psychological health. They met in Hong Kong in 1958, when she was an actress. She turned to sculpture in around 1963 in Paris. Zao Wou-ki


(source: Gazette Drouot International / May)