In Paris, dreaming of Vietnam – Emulation and style kinship during the Parisian period of Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam (1937-1949)

Conference by Anne Fort, curator in charge of the Southeast Asia and Central Asia collection at the Cernuschi Museum.

On the occasion of and in connection with the exhibition “Lê Phô, Mai-Thu, Vu Cao Dam – Pioneers of modern Vietnamese art in France”, which traces the careers of these three artists, from their training at the École des beaux-arts de l’Indochine until the end of their lives in France, this conference focuses on their Parisian period, from 1938 to 1949.

Trained at the Indochina School of Fine Arts in Hanoi, Lê Phô (1907-2001) and Mai-Thu (1906-1980) joined the first class in 1925, and Vu Cao Dam (1908-2000), the second in 1926. This was the first higher school of fine arts, according to the Western meaning of the term, established in Indochina. At the time, in Vietnam, the art system was closer to the corporations of the Western Middle Ages. Artists did not sign their works and specialties were organized by village or neighborhood (ceramicists, cabinetmakers, lacquerers, etc.). With this school, the notion of artist was born in Vietnam.

The initiative for this school was initiated by Victor Tardieu. Arriving in Indochina in 1921, during his stay in Hanoi, he met Nam Sơn, an artist who had explored the arts of the Far East before trying his hand at oil painting. His meeting with Tardieu was decisive, because Nam Sơn managed to convince him of the importance of creating a school dedicated to fine arts in Indochina. Tardieu, for his part, managed to persuade the colonial authorities to support this project. The school was founded in 1924, exactly one hundred years ago, and classes began the following year, in 1925.

In 1925, Vu Cao Dam took the entrance exam for the School but came eleventh out of ten available places. Seeing his motivation, Victor Tardieu allowed him to take classes with the winners. He caught up with his drawing skills and joined the class in 1926. At the end of his studies, he graduated top of his class and received a scholarship to continue his studies in Europe. His arrival in Paris in December 1931 marked the beginning of his career in France, a French career that would be the longest of the three artists since he would never return to Indochina.

The main opportunity for students of the Indochina School of Fine Arts was to obtain a position as a drawing teacher in a high school, as was the case for Lê Phô, assigned to Hanoi, and Mai-Thu, appointed to Huê. In 1931, Lê Phô accompanied Victor Tardieu to Paris for the development of the Indochinese section of the Colonial Exhibition, in particular the presentation of the works of his students and former students on one of the floors of the replica of the temple of Angkor Wat.

Exhibition at the Indochina Economic Agency, 20 rue de la Boétie, Paris, 1932. Alain Le Kim Archives. © Adagp, Paris, [2024].

Vu Cao Dam. Naked woman. 1930, Hanoi, Patinated plaster. Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Inv. 75.14406.

Vu Cao Dam, Mai-Thu, Renée Appriou, the fiancée of Vu Cao Dam and Lê Phô. Paris, circa 1937. Archives of the Mai-Thu association continued.

At the end of the Colonial Exhibition, encouraged by the positive reception of the works of his young artists by critics and the public, Victor Tardieu used his network to obtain in Paris, within the Economic Agency of Indochina, an exhibition space presenting on a quasi-permanent basis and in a constantly renewed selection of works sent directly from Indochina, or else produced in Paris, in the case of Vu Cao Dam who was already there. Among the works exhibited, some are presented in the rooms of the exhibition “Lê Phô, Mai-Thu, Vu Cao Dam – Pioneers of modern Vietnamese art in France” at the Cernuschi museum. This is the case of the Naked woman (1930) by Vu Cao Dam. However, at that time, the director of the Indochina Economic Agency complained to Victor Tardieu that the sculptures were not selling well and that the oil paintings were of no interest to the French clientele who, in their quest for exoticism, preferred paintings on silk.

The year 1937 was a pivotal date because the three artists found themselves in Paris. Victor Tardieu being very ill – he died in June 1937 – Lê Phô returned to Paris alone to set up the Indochinese section of the Universal Exhibition. He then planned to continue his career in France. At the same time Mai-Thu, who had never left Indochina, applied for a scholarship to attend the 1937 Universal Exhibition. By coming to settle in France, the two artists gave up their salary as high school drawing teachers. They therefore had to live exclusively from the sales of their paintings. Thus began a period during which they would often exhibit together, their works sharing the same style, and this until 1946, even 1949.

What characterizes this common style is silk painting. Vietnamese silk painting is a technique developed within the Indochina School of Fine Arts. It consists of marouflage silk on a rigid cardboard, such as Bristol board. The design is traced with graphite pencil then the pigments are applied with brushes. The surface is then washed with water to harmonize and make the colors penetrate the silk, but also to soften them and erase the brush strokes. The paternity of this technique is attributed to Nguyễn Phan Chánh, who is said to have one day tried to erase an unfortunate brush stroke on the silk with water. The painting is regularly coated with layers of glue mixed with alum, to fix the pigments and prevent mold.

In 1939 war broke out. Lê Phô and Mai-Thu joined the French army and were demobilized the following year, in July 1940. Lê Phô went to Nice where, thanks to friends living on the Riviera Place, he reached an audience of aristocrats from all over Europe. Mai-Thu was demobilized in Mâcon, in Burgundy, where he attracted the attention of the local bourgeoisie who commissioned a series of portraits from him, such as the Portrait of Mrs. ND and her daughter (1941). He mixes the Western realistic style, evident in the resemblance and precise modeling of the faces, while introducing an Asian accent through the predominance of the line and a total absence of relief and shadow in the clothing and decor.

Mai-Thu. Portrait of Mrs. ND and her daughter. Mâcon. 1941. Colors on silk. Private collection.

Lê Phô. Couple in love. Paris, circa 1938-40. Colors on silk. Private collection. © Adagp, Paris, [2024].

Vu Cao Dam. Seated woman. Paris. 1940. Patinated terracotta Spain, Majorca, Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober, Inv. No. 1309.

In 1942 in Algiers, André Romanet organized an exhibition-sale of the works of Mai-Thu and Lê Phô at the Pasteur art gallery, which was a great success. They each presented about fifty works, mainly representing women engaged in noble and idle activities, in happy and idyllic atmospheres.

The style developed in 1937 by Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam is therefore characterised by an exclusive use of silk mounted on cardboard and, stylistically, by female figures with slender silhouettes, stereotypical faces, in elegant attitudes, marked by a mannerism very different from the massiveness and simplicity of the compositions of the early 1930s. The narrow, long and supple arms seem devoid of any internal structure. A certain archaism is deliberately introduced to reinforce the image of an eternal, ideal and timeless Vietnam.

Vu Cao Dam. Women bathing. Paris, 1944. Colors on silk. Private collection. © Adagp, Paris, [2024].

Mai-Thu. Two young women. Nice, circa 1941. Colors on silk. Private collection. © Mai-Thu Committee, Adagp, Paris, [2024].

Lê Phô. Meditation. Paris. 1940s. Colors on silk. Private collection. © Adagp, Paris, [2024].

The points of view multiply in the same composition where the geometric perspective is no longer respected but, on the contrary, where the vanishing points widen upwards, while the characters are stacked one above the other. Mai-Thu will follow these codes defined around 1937 until the end of her life, indefinitely varying her representations of graceful young women, mothers and their children, children busy with their games.

Vu Cao Dam, the first to settle in Paris, had difficulty living solely from his sculpture commissions. In the mid-1930s, he began painting on silk. At first, his figures were massive, realistic, and his palette was dark. Then, as soon as his comrades joined him in 1937, he quickly shared the enthusiasm for this new Mannerist style and added small terracotta statuettes, evoking the mingqi, these Chinese funerary figurines from the Han (206 BC-220 AD) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, but whose Vietnamese appearance is marked by their long, fitted tunic and their hairstyle with a thick crown of hair surrounded by a fabric that frames their head.

Mai-Thu. La Source. Vanves, 1966. Colors on silk, Almine and Bernard Ruiz Picasso Collection. © Mai-Thu Committee, Adagp, Paris, [2024].

Vu Cao Dam. Composition. Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 1959. Oil on panel. Private collection.

Lê Phô. Women in the garden (detail). Paris, 1969. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

Lê Phô is distinguished by his taste for transparency and blur effects that adorn his silhouettes with a luminous aura. At the end of their career, while Mai-Thu remained faithful to silk painting, Vu Cao Dam and Lê Phô abandoned it for oil painting. Settled in Vence from 1952, Vu Cao Dam admired more colorful and dreamlike styles, such as that of Marc Chagall, for example, who lived not far from him. His colors burst forth in a shimmering of touches where the elements of the decor dissolve. Lê Phô, for his part, plays on colors in a joyful neo-impressionism where his admiration for the painter Pierre Bonnard shines through.

Lê Văn Đệ, En Famille. Paris, 1933. Oil on canvas. FNAC. Exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1933. Purchased by the French State.

Le Van Du (1906-1966). Virgin and Child. 1941. Colours on silk. Private collection.

A fourth figure may well have played a major role in the advent in 1937 of this very particular style of these pioneers of modern Vietnamese art in Paris: Lê Văn Đệ (1906-1966). Lê Văn Đệ was the classmate of Lê Phô and Mai-Thu at the École des beaux-arts de l'Indochine. He graduated top of his class in 1930 and won a scholarship that allowed him to come to Paris. He settled for a time in Italy and returned to Paris in 1937 for the Universal Exhibition. He returned to Vietnam in 1938 and later became director of the Saigon School of Fine Arts from 1954 to 1966. The work of South Vietnamese painters of this period is closely related to the 1940s style of Lê Phô, Mai-Thu and Vu Cao Dam. The depictions of women in bright colours with highly decorative accents and an overall stylisation perpetuate on silk this style developed in 1937, in the climate of emulation created by the reunion of the four comrades in Paris.