THE ART'S COLLECTION

In the mid 1980's, at a time when Vietnam remained largely closed to the outside world and was still recovering from decades of war. The collection has been carefully developed to include the leading artists from each of the 4 generations since the establishment of the original Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts de L'Indochine (Fine Arts College of Indochina) founded by the liberal-minded French artist Victor Tardieu in 1925. 

The first generation covers those artists who studied at the French-influenced college between 1925-1945; the second generation covers the war years from 1945-1975; the third generation covers Vietnam's socialist realism period of 1975-1986; and the fourth generation covers the period from the country's initiation of its Đời Mới "renovation" policies in 1986 to the present day.

Artists represented in this collection include: Nguyen Gia Tri, Bui Xuan Phai, Nguyen Sang, Nguyen Tu Nghiem, Nguyen Tien Chung, Tu Duyen, Nguyen Xuan Viet and my others. 

Tu Duyen was one of the first generation of artists to study at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts de L'Indochine in Hanoi from 1936-1939. Early in his career, Tu Duyen invented a new painting technique known as "hand-stamping on silk". The image is initially hand-carved on to two separate wooden plates, which are then painted using the artist's fingers. The two plates are then sequentially imprinted on to silk to create the resulting painting, which is hand-signed by the artist.