Vietnam as seen through Vietnamese Artists’ Eyes

- Alison True

How a longtime friendship led philanthropist Albert Goodman to possess the most significant collection of Vietnamese paintings in North America.

Albert Goodman was staying with a friend in Amsterdam in 1971 when an acquaintance from college looked him up to see if he'd like to take a drive. Bruce Blowitz, a fellow Chicagoan, had just bought a Volkswagen bus, and Goodman joined him for a ramble around some European capitals.

Thanks to that journey, and the enduring bond that arose from it, Goodman—now 70 and a Chicago philanthropist best known for his support of the theater that bears his family name—is the new owner of a large collection of modern art from Vietnam. An exhibition of the work, possibly the most significant collection of Vietnamese art in North America, offers views of a world few Westerners have seen before: images of daily life during the wars that ravaged Southeast Asia for decades.

After their resources dwindled, Goodman and Blowitz returned to the States: Goodman to business school and Blowitz to law school to please his father, Chicago attorney and developer Milroy Blowitz. But the younger Blowitz hated law school and quit after one semester, moving to San Francisco to drive a cab. He went on to Japan to teach English, then discovered Bangkok and gemology. He kept his base in San Francisco but began making regular trips to Asia to buy and sell gems.

From Bangkok, Blowitz took side trips to Cambodia, Laos and Burma, and as he learned about the people there, he also began to admire their modern art, much of which reflected the violent struggles for control of those countries. He began buying paintings and drawings, often directly from the artists. Then he discovered Vietnam. "In 1992, Bruce was in Bangkok when he read in a local newspaper that Americans were visiting Vietnam because they had just opened their borders to the United States," Goodman recalls.

Attitudes in the U.S. toward the communist regime in Vietnam and neighboring countries vary but are pretty well understood. Local perspectives on the long, bloody wars there have been harder to fathom. But as Japan, France, China and the United States fought over the country's resources and politics, local artists recorded life in its cities, rice paddies and rebel camps.

"Vietnam's history is documented by a lot of other people besides the Vietnamese—Hollywood has its version, the Western media have a version, while the socialist countries also have a version. Because film, TV and photography were very limited in Vietnam in the 20th century, the Vietnamese told their story through art and literature," British tech entrepreneur Adrian Jones, who owns one of the largest collections of Southeast Asian art in the world, told ArtAsiaPacific magazine in 2014.

Vietnamese modern art evolved as the country did. After the nation was divided in 1954, the artists who gravitated to the South focused on idyllic landscapes, says Nora Taylor, professor of South and Southeast Asian art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the communist North, artists communicated state ideology through naturalistic images of people at work and at home.

Art from the North was Blowitz's focus. "Bruce Blowitz was very fortunate to have acquired masterpieces by the first generation of Vietnamese modern artists, many of whom graduated from the national colonial-period art school and then survived revolution and poverty when the country was divided by politics and foreign occupation," says Taylor, who met Blowitz in Hanoi.

By the late 90s, Blowitz began making plans to move to Asia. In Cambodia, he married a local woman and bought a small farm and an apartment building as investments. He also built a house in Phnom Penh, displaying his paintings on its walls. Goodman, who visited Blowitz over the years, bringing him corned beef and other delicacies from home, loved seeing his friend's most recent purchases. Goodman had been opposed to the war in Vietnam and was fascinated by the way the artwork sometimes mixed domestic scenes with images of war, offering unseen perspectives on a country that had been so decimated by his own.

In one painting, villagers carry baskets to empty into an enormous barrel of rice: their contributions to the revolution. In another, a young factory worker meets the artist's gaze, working her machinery wearing a red armband. Some of the pieces carry political messages: A social-realist-style image of workers is emblazoned with banners reading, "We are really the masters of the factory and the country" and "We try to serve as a model in our work."

Other pieces make direct reference to the war: In one, a gray-haired woman dispenses wisdom at a campfire surrounded by seated soldiers. Another, of the red brick ruins of a train station, depicts the north-south meeting point of the French colonial railway network, destroyed once by the Japanese during their occupation and again in one of the American war's bloodiest battles.

Several years ago, Blowitz was diagnosed with cancer, and Goodman's trips to see his old friend took on a new urgency. Now he brought medical supplies along with the corned beef. They also discussed how Blowitz would dispose of his estate, especially his treasured art collection.

Goodman offered to buy a few Vietnamese paintings he especially liked, and he and Blowitz agreed on a price. A collector from New Zealand made an offer for Blowitz's large collection of paintings by Svay Ken, one of the few Cambodian artists to survive the murder of intellectuals by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. In the meantime, however, Goodman had discovered Chicago's National Cambodian Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, the only major monument to the 1970s genocide outside Cambodia. Goodman persuaded Blowitz to sell two Svay paintings to the museum in fall 2014, then donated the funds to the museum for their purchase. Blowitz agreed to sell the rest to the collector.

Goodman saw Blowitz the following February and again in May. He could tell the end was drawing near. Blowitz died in July 2015, and Goodman was surprised to learn that his old friend had left him his entire collection of Vietnamese art, some 120 paintings and 20 other works on paper, including drawings and propaganda posters. "I was pretty sure that he had me in mind for some of the favorites that I had pointed out to him," Goodman says. "But not the whole tamale!"

Blowitz had given Taylor's contact information to Goodman, and as he began to transport the works here, he approached her for advice and invited her to curate an exhibition. "Post-War Vietnamese Art From the Albert I. Goodman Collection" opens Nov. 9, 2016, at the John David Mooney Foundation in River North. Taylor says she believes Blowitz would be pleased. "The works in this exhibition were produced by artists who had no access to modern technology or international art movements," says Taylor, "but who worked in a time and place rich with historical and political significance."

Goodman also lent some pieces to the Pritzker Military Museum and Library for an exhibit about the Vietnam War, which also includes political cartoons by Bill Mauldin and photographs by military staff taken in battle zones. The exhibit mainly reflects the experiences and points of view of American soldiers and command, but the Goodman items provide a valuable counterpoint: a view from the other side.

Albert I. Goodman and Dr. Nora A. Taylor