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Lot Essay
MAI TRUNG THU: CONFUCIANISM AND REALISM
A great painter understands his craft and is able to talk about himself. Therefore, to truly understand Mai Thu's paintings it is key to understand his life as well. Born into a Mandarin's family in North Vietnam, his brilliant studies in the Indochina Fine-Arts School (Hanoi) from 1925 to 1930 and from which he graduated in the first class, paved the way for his move to France in 1937 for a new life just after leaving the Lycée of Hué where he was working as an art teacher.
His origins, education and quest for the West, are some of the many points he shared with his lifetime friends, the painters Le Pho, Vu Cao Dam and Le Thi Luu. If we tried to differentiate him from his friends, we could say that he remained probably the most "Vietnamese" of all his peers although he genuinely loved his adopted country France.
Mai Thu, soon became known for his evocative works on silk using gouache and ink. This became the sole medium he would faithfully use from 1937 and for the rest of his life.
As we can see here, he composed his works to offer the vision of a nostalgic but also a proud Vietnam where (mainly) women and children remain the true messengers of happiness, elegance and immanence. In L'Étude (Study) (Lot 302) and La Lettre (The Letter) (Lot 303), Mai Thu depicts the gentle tenderness and love of the mother to her child in an elegant world. Indeed, Mai Thu exemplifies the Confucians ethics of ancient Vietnam nurtured by education and filial duty adding his very own touch of kind softness. For Mai Thu, authority is not severity, it is love that builds the bond and not submission. Mai Thu left for France, partially, to refuse this moral submission.
The young lady in Jeune Fille Agenouillée (Young Girl Kneeling) (Lot 304) is the paradigm of obedience as a passive listener and she further illustrates this ancient moral.
These three paintings irradiate Mai Thu's style so characteristic to him: the mandarin mood made of a mixture of sophistication and austerity bathed in a lot of love. But our painter is also immersed in the real world: it is shown in this extremely rare subject Still Life with Pineapples and Oranges (Lot 305), these appetizing fruits, where by his talent in gouache on silk he raises simple fruits into art objects.
The masterworks mentioned here are a perfect illustration of the painter's talent at his best.
Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Vietnamese Art
A great painter understands his craft and is able to talk about himself. Therefore, to truly understand Mai Thu's paintings it is key to understand his life as well. Born into a Mandarin's family in North Vietnam, his brilliant studies in the Indochina Fine-Arts School (Hanoi) from 1925 to 1930 and from which he graduated in the first class, paved the way for his move to France in 1937 for a new life just after leaving the Lycée of Hué where he was working as an art teacher.
His origins, education and quest for the West, are some of the many points he shared with his lifetime friends, the painters Le Pho, Vu Cao Dam and Le Thi Luu. If we tried to differentiate him from his friends, we could say that he remained probably the most "Vietnamese" of all his peers although he genuinely loved his adopted country France.
Mai Thu, soon became known for his evocative works on silk using gouache and ink. This became the sole medium he would faithfully use from 1937 and for the rest of his life.
As we can see here, he composed his works to offer the vision of a nostalgic but also a proud Vietnam where (mainly) women and children remain the true messengers of happiness, elegance and immanence. In L'Étude (Study) (Lot 302) and La Lettre (The Letter) (Lot 303), Mai Thu depicts the gentle tenderness and love of the mother to her child in an elegant world. Indeed, Mai Thu exemplifies the Confucians ethics of ancient Vietnam nurtured by education and filial duty adding his very own touch of kind softness. For Mai Thu, authority is not severity, it is love that builds the bond and not submission. Mai Thu left for France, partially, to refuse this moral submission.
The young lady in Jeune Fille Agenouillée (Young Girl Kneeling) (Lot 304) is the paradigm of obedience as a passive listener and she further illustrates this ancient moral.
These three paintings irradiate Mai Thu's style so characteristic to him: the mandarin mood made of a mixture of sophistication and austerity bathed in a lot of love. But our painter is also immersed in the real world: it is shown in this extremely rare subject Still Life with Pineapples and Oranges (Lot 305), these appetizing fruits, where by his talent in gouache on silk he raises simple fruits into art objects.
The masterworks mentioned here are a perfect illustration of the painter's talent at his best.
Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Vietnamese Art