The Casorella Museum in Locarno is presenting the monographic exhibition Zao Wou-Ki. Un
giardino di segni [A Garden of Signs] until January 2026. Under the artistic direction of art
historian and archaeologist Veronica Provenzale, the exhibition highlights the important
collection of works by artist Zao Wou-Ki, which is part of the bequest of renowned Swiss
publisher Nesto Jacometti (1898-1973) to his hometown.

Featuring eleven paintings, thirty-four works on paper and over a hundred engravings, the City of Locarno’s collection is the largest public collection of works by Zao Wou-Ki in Switzerland and one of the first to be established in Europe.

Nesto Jacometti and Zao Wou-Ki met in Paris two years after Zao arrived in the French capital in 1948.

In 1950, the Guilde Internationale de la Gravure, founded by Pierre Cailler and Nesto Jacometti in Geneva, opened a branch in Paris. Many of the Guild’s artists were friends of Zao Wou-Ki who signed a collaboration contract with the Guild in September 1950. This was at this time, most probably in the midst of their studio work, that Zao Wou-Ki and Nesto Jacometti met for the first time, beginning a collaboration that would last for around fifteen years.

From 1952 onwards, Zao Wou-Ki became involved in the adventure of L’Œuvre gravée, a new company founded by Jacometti. Based in Zurich and Paris, L’Œuvre gravée collaborated with artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Hans Hartung, Johnny Friedlaender, Antoni Clavé, Zoran Music and Kumi Sugaï, among others.

The correspondence between Zao Wou-Ki and Nesto Jacometti during this period attests to a genuine bond and friendship, which did not exclude a few differences of opinion regarding the number of prints or aesthetic choices. 

Nesto Jacometti played an undeniable role in promoting and raising the fame of Zao Wou-Ki’s work, organising numerous exhibitions for his friend. At that time, Jacometti was also one of the leading collectors of Zao Wou-Ki’s works. 

The City of Locarno’s Zao Wou-Ki collection, donated by Nesto Jacometti to his hometown in 1974, includes numerous works (prints, paintings, watercolours) created by the artist between 1949 and 1965. 

In 1965, Zao Wou-Ki and Nesto Jacometti decided to end their collaboration, promising to remain friends. At the end of the 1960s, although they wrote to each other less often than before, their letters still showed a deep and lasting affection.

Twelve years after the 2013 retrospective at the Casa Rusca in Locarno, the first following the artist’s death, the Museo Casorella is dedicating this new solo exhibition to Zao Wou-Ki. Bringing together engravings, watercolours and oil paintings, all from the Jacometti bequest, Un giardino di segni seeks to highlight a crucial period in the painter’s artistic career, when, inspired by the art of Paul Klee, he was confronted with a different way of painting, which led him towards abstraction from 1953 onwards.