Georgina Adam has more on the aftermath of Zhao Wou-ki’s death:
The painter, who was 92 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, died in Switzerland, where he had been moved in 2011 by his third wife, Françoise Marquet. She is pitted against his son by a first marriage, Jia Ling Zhao, 66, and the two were battling even before the artist’s death, both seeking guardianship of the artist and thus of a stockpile of paintings worth up to €500m.
Zhao claimed his father wanted to stay in France, and that Marquet’s decision to move to Switzerland was motivated by the anticipated election of a Socialist president in France, and a possible increase in taxes. In emails published in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, she spoke of the “alarming political situation” and predicted “tough economic conditions with heavy taxation”. Marquet, a former curator in Paris’s Museum of Modern Art, also took some 400 works of art to establish a foundation in Nyon, Switzerland. Both have gone to court, and Marquet has accused Zhao’s lawyer, Jean-Philippe Hugot, of “orchestrating a media campaign” about the circumstances of her husband’s death.
Art Market: Iznik Great (Financial Times)
