Wu Yiding, the youngest son, says the painting is the last completed work in the artist's oeuvre.

The ailing Wu Guanzhong was sent to hospital shortly after he finished the painting.

"Father didn't have the time to sign or stamp his seals on it, neither did he get the piece framed," Wu Yiding says. "He was hospitalized for 85 days. He never returned home to his studio."

In his body of works, Wu Guanzhong hailed the beauty of forms. He choreographed a symphony of lines and dots between strokes, aided by layering a light, refreshing palette, to deliver rhythmic poetry.

Wu Guanzhong is known for bringing East and West closer together through his work. He was trained at Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 1940s. He often said he wanted to be a man of "mixed blood in art" to fuse the essence of the two cultures.