Lê Phô, Mai-Thu, Vu Cao Dam: Pioneers of modern Vietnamese art in France

Anne Fort, curator of the exhibition, tells us about it !

This fall, Cernuschi Museum is staging the first major retrospective in France of three pioneers of modern Vietnamese art: Lê Phô (1907–2001), Mai-Thu (1906–1980) and Vu Cao Dam (1908–2000). Displaying 150 works by the three artists, the exhibition traces their progress from their studies at the Hanoi School of Fine Arts through their long careers in France from 1937 onwards. This event coincides with the centenary of the Hanoi School of Fine Arts, where for the first time Western art and Vietnamese traditions were brought together in Intense student-teacher exchanges that gave rise to a new, distinctively Indo-Chinese style.

Among Vietnam's pioneering artists, Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam stand out for having chosen to pursue their careers in France. Their period of study at the Hanoi School of Fine Arts triggered a shared urge to experience the artistic effervescence of Paris. Lê Phô was the first to make the trip, to supervise the layout of the Indochinese section of the Colonial Exhibition in 1931; he then returned in 1937 for the Universal Exhibition. Vu Cao Dam arrived in the French capital in December 1931 on a scholarship and Mai-Thu joined them in the summer of 1937. The adventure was prolonged by choice, but also by circumstances, as war raged successively on both sides of the continent, from 1939 to 1975: thirty-six years that made any return hazardous.

Anne fort, curator of the exhibition, tells us about it.

Vu Cao Dam flanked by Mai-Thu and Lê Phô at his exhibition of paintings on silk at the Van Ryck gallery.

Paris, 1946.

Announced as the first retrospective in France of three pioneers of modern Vietnamese painting, can you tell us about the genesis of this project ? Why were these

three artists chosen?

It is the first retrospective of the careers of three artists whose particularity is both to belong to the generation of pioneers of modern Vietnamese painting, and to have chosen to pursue their careers in France.

The title of the exhibition is indeed: “Pioneers of modern Vietnamese art in France”. If we omit “in France”, we're leaving out all the artists trained in Indochina during the late 1920s and 1930s, both in Hanoi and Saigon, who remained in Vietnam. And these are obviously the most numerous.

After the success of the monographic exhibition “Mai-Thu. Écho d'un Vietnam rêvé”, held in 2021 at the Musée des Ursulines in Mâcon, organized in partnership with the Cernuschi Museum, our museum has been exploring the links between artists from Asian origin whom have connections with France. As our scientific project deals with the study of reciprocical influences between the codes of Western arts and Far Eastern traditions, this exhibition fits in perfectly as it brings light on the twentieth-century Vietnam. As such, it completes the artistic and cultural perspective we have already presented to our public for Chinese, Japanese and Korean artists.

The exhibition offers unprecedented access to archives opened by the artists' families. Can you tell us more about this collaboration? How do they view their remarkable careers?

Being the first retrospective of Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam, this exhibition is enriched by a catalog designed as
the first scientific work of reference on the subject. Collaboration with the artists' families was decisive in clarifying their
respective biographies and characterizing their stylistic trend. More than 80 photographs from the family archives enhance the presentation and help to reconstruct the social context of the period. These three artists had been close friends since the time of their training at the Hanoi School of Fine Arts. This friendship obviously continued once they all found themselves permanently lived in France from 1937 onwards. Their children called their father's painter friends “uncle”. Lê Phô was even godfather to Vu Cao Dam's daughter. The families of our three artists have always admired their perseverance in the face of adversity and their tenacity in pursuing their artistic path, even though in the 1940s and 1950s, making a living from their art sometimes proved very difficult. The authenticity of their artistic quest is recognized and shared by all their friends and family. Henceforth, it is with great emotion and enthusiasm that they have given their invaluable support to this exhibition, so that the singular careers of Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam can be made accessible to the general public.

Mai-Thu, The Bride.

Hué, 1935.

Oil on canvas.

Privatecollection.

Could you tell us about a work in the exhibition that particularly moved you? In what way do you think it is exceptional?

The exhibition brings together a great number of exceptional works, in particular the very large canvases, kakemonos and sculptures in the section dedicated to the 1930s and the three artists' official support in a colonial context. The works on loan from the Cité Universitaire de Paris and the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum take on their full meaning when brought together.

But if I had to choose just one work, I'd suggest Vu Cao Dam's Portrait d'un lettré (1939). The work greets visitors from the very first room, which is conceived as an alcove, a sacred space in which the stakes underlying the artistic quest of the three artists are suggested. The scholar, dressed in blue, impresses by his height, his hieratic, frontal stance, the nobility of his features and his wise, distant expression. The work, produced on silk mounted on cardboard, combines Western borrowings - the rigidity of the support allowing it to be inserted into a frame - with references to an Asian tradition that already belongs to a bygone era. Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam belong to the generation that saw the demise of the old empire and the advent of a modern, Western-inspired Vietnam. The look on the face of the old scholar in blue seems to me to reflect this questioning, which concerns the place of the past in this fast- changing world, and beyond that, brings out an interrogation of the artist's identity, having to juggle the claim to his origins with the total freedom he is now allowed.

Lê Phô, Mai Thu and Vu Cao Dam are all artists who enjoy an exceptional rate on the art market. How do you explain this craze for modern Vietnamese art?

For more than two decades, the market for Vietnamese paintings has been driven by a clientele essentially from Asia or with strong ties to Asia, via the fields of commerce and industry, whose financial resources have been steadily increasing since the 1990s. The opening up of Vietnam's economy has led to the emergence of a new wealthy class, interested in art out of taste, speculative interest and nationalist impulse. Because of the ties between Vietnam and France, going back to colonial times, many old works had remained in France, sent from Vietnam and bought in France as early as the 1930s, or bought in Indochina and brought back to France before the 1950s. Due to the turmoil of the two wars that afflicted Vietnam between 1946 and 1975, early twentieth-century works surviving in Vietnam are rare. As a result, works emerging on the European market attracted a wealthy Asian clientele, and prices soared.

What was the relationship between Vietnamese artists and the Cernuschi Museum in the 20th
century?

Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam were erudite artists who enjoyed visiting museums and remained curious about all art forms. We know they frequently came the Cernuschi Museum and the Guimet Museum, especially Vu Cao Dam, who had taken art history courses at the École du Louvre as early as 1932, specializing in the arts of the Far East. The terracotta figurines he produced around 1940 bear a striking resemblance to the Chinese funerary mingqi from the Han and Tang dynasties that he could study at the museum.

On the other hand, the works of these painters were not collected in the second half of the twentieth century nor by French museums, nor by museums of Asian art, and nor by museums of modern art. The painful relations between Vietnam and France at the time of the Indochina War may explain this break in institutional interest, as may the three artists' independence from more contemporary movements. Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam made a living from their art throughout their lives in France, seeking no support other than that of their clientele and gallery owners, but never allowing the boundaries protecting their creative freedom to be crossed.

Lê Phô, Tonkin Hanoi landscape,

between 1932
and 1934.

Three-panel lacquered wood screen.

Lam family collection

Further information :
Cernuschi Museum
7, avenue Velasquez
75008 Paris
Open everyday except Monday
From 10 am to 6 pm

Lê Phô, Mai-Thu, Vu Cao Dam: Pioneers of modern Vietnamese art in France

Printemps Asiatique Paris

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