Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm
1922-2016, Viet Nam

Nghiem, like his classmates Phai and Sang, is recognized as a pioneer modernist. He liked to claim that he and Picasso shared the trait of being inspired by “primitive” art, except that he didn’t look to Africa for inspiration – rather, his sources were the village folk carvings of 17th-century Vietnamese communal houses.

Like his fellow modernists, he resisted the political ideas of the day, arguing for art’s inherent worth. Consequently, he rarely showed at national art exhibitions until the doors to the outside opened and a greater tolerance for abstraction and experimental art prevailed. Paradoxically, he was recognized by the younger generation of artists in the 1990’s, along with Phai and Sang, as a patriot and a modernist. Those two terms were no longer mutually exclusive.

Tạ Tỵ
1922-2014, Viet Nam

Ta Ty studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine, and moved south 1954. In 1975, he was sent to a reeducation camp and then managed to flee to California in 1983. He is known for his abstract cubist compositions, and he also experimented in the 1950’s with surrealism, and was known for his humor and his caricatures.

He was highly regarded by his peers for his unique style and his courage in defying the status quo. He was recognized posthumously by official Vietnamese art institutions and his works can be found in the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts.

Vũ Dân Tân
1946-2009, Viet Nam

The son of a playwright and publisher, Tan was a self-taught artist and musician who never joined any official art organization or exhibition. Employed by the animation studios of the national television channel, he traveled to other socialist countries in the 1970’s. He married the Russian-born artist Natalia Kraevskaia (b. 1952), and in the 1980’s, after several years living in the Soviet Union, they opened Salon Natasha in his childhood home.

Tan was inspired by the social changes that he saw after Perestroika, and Salon Natasha became a haven for artists who no longer felt constrained by communist dictates about art. Tan himself could be described as a kind of Dadaist – he broke all of the conventions in art in Vietnam.

He is best known for his cardboard cut-outs: sculptures made of scrap paper, discarded cigarette boxes, and whiskey bottles. These were subtle critiques of the rising tide of consumerism in Doi Moi society. In his later years, with failing eyesight, he often drew portraits of his wife. Bruce Blowitz valued his friendship with the couple and acquired two portraits of Natasha made shortly before Tan’s passing.

Văn Đen
1919-1988, Viet Nam

Van Den was born deep in the Mekong Delta, and in 1950 he traveled to France to study at the Paris Academy of Arts, where he stayed for three years. As an artist, he remained true to the traditions of the south, and his paintings capture a realistic view of the landscape, though they also convey his fondness for using thick layers of dark oil pigments.

His works were not recognized immediately following reunification by the Hanoi based Artists’ Association, nor were they collected by the museum there until he was given a posthumous exhibition in 1995.

Vietnamese artists:
Propaganda posters

- a selection from the collection

Duy Ta
Hoàng Quy
Huỳnh Văn Thuận
Lê Sơn Hải
Lê Trọng Cường
Lưu Công Nhân
Ngô Vǎn Tâm
Ngọc Lân

Ngọc Quý
Nguyễn Thị Minh Phương
Nguyễn Văn Thân
Phạm Công Thành
Phạm Văn Quế
Văn Chúc
Văn Thơ
Trịnh Phòng

Burmese, Lao
and Thai artists

- a selection from the collection

Aye Soe
Kyaw Thaung
Mgsoe Win
Sa Ngad

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