LE PHO (1907-2001)
LE PHO (1907-2001)
LE PHO (1907-2001)
LE PHO (1907-2001)
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LE PHO (1907-2001)

Portrait of the Artist Le Thi Luu

Details
LE PHO (1907-2001)
Portrait of the Artist Le Thi Luu
signed and dated 'LE-PHO 1935' (lower right)
oil on canvas
145 x 76 cm. (57 1⁄8 x 29 7⁄8 in.)
Painted in 1935
Provenance
Le Thi Luu (gifted from the artist in 1935)
Ngo Manh Duc, son of Le Thi Luu (by descent from the previous owner)
Christie's Hong Kong, 26 May 2013, lot 3411
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Brought to you by

Dexter How (陶啟勇)
Dexter How (陶啟勇) Vice President, Senior Specialist

Lot Essay

LE PHO: PORTRAIT OF LE THI LUU, 1935,
OR THE HALF-OPEN DOOR LETS IN THE WIND

Large works in oil on canvas from Le Pho's early period are extremely rare. Some of them include L'Âge heureux (1930), illustrated in Trois Écoles d'art de l'Indochine (1931) and in Art of Vietnam by J.F. Hubert and C. Noppe (2002), La maison familiale au Tonkin (1929) exhibited in La Maison de l'Asie du Sud-Est at the Cité internationale Universitaire de Paris, La vue du haut de la colline (1937) from the Tholance-Lorenzi Collection and Nue (1931) from the Tuan Pham Collection.

The painting presented here is a rare portrait of Le Thi Luu at 24 years old, who was not only a talented painter, but also the friend and muse of the first generation of modern Vietnamese painters of the 20th century - Le Pho, Mai Trung Thu, Nguyen Phan Chanh, Vu Cao Dam, To Ngoc Van, Tran Quang Tran, Nguyen Cat Tuong, Pham Hau, Nguyen Gia Tri and others.

The work is structured with clear, distinct lines, mainly vertical and oblique, but also soft, bluish tones that challenge the geometric treatment of the pictorial space, as if the colours were disputing the line.

The painting does not aim to be a profound manifesto, but it remains one of the most pertinent illustrations of Le Pho's (and Le Thi Luu's) social milieu in Vietnam in 1935.

The beautiful artist is dressed in the ao dai revived by Nguyen Cat Tuong (Lémur), her classmate at the Hanoi School of Fine Arts (where he himself graduated a year later in 1933). However, her shoes and headdress remain in the classic Tonkinese style. Le Thi Luu seems to be both the literal and figurative descendant of the classic ancestral portrait hanging on the wall above the bench. The long cushion against which she leans, showcase an elegant poise, reserved but attentive. Another painting hangs beside the other (a contemporary work perhaps) in the background on the right, while the plant on the lower left, a graphic quotation that Le Pho was fond of using in the 1930s, alludes to the wear and tear of time. The volutes of the plant, like the patterns on the carpet, challenge the strict geometric order of the painting.

But above all the face of Le Thi Luu, with its discreet make-up (apart from the scarlet lipstick), expresses not only a certain sadness, but also a steadfast determination that was to characterise Le Thi Luu's entire life.

With its series of clear oppositions, our painting crystallises many of the current issues that came to the fore in 1936, in a Vietnam faced with a dilemma between modernisation and tradition, renewal or decline, nationalism or universality, passivity or activism, individualism or conformism. In France, the Front Populaire won the 1936 elections, and the political message was socialism. In Vietnam, the colonial power proposed a new discourse in which social dialogue became the necessary paradigm.

Signifying and committing both.

The following year, in 1937 Victor Tardieu, founder of the Indochina School of Fine Arts in Hanoi, died. With him died the spirit of a quasi-family project. Le Pho moved to Paris. Le Thi Luu and her husband left for France in 1940. Vu Cao Dam had already lived there since 1931, and Mai Thu since 1937 as well.

In our still misogynistic world, we often forget that the original trio was actually a quartet with a female protagonist.
This quarter was inseparable in France until the death of Mai Thu in 1980, and Le Thi Luu herself in 1988.

As Phan Chau Trinh (1872-1926) wrote in his poem La Chandelle:

But the half-open door lets in the breeze
In the night that is drawing to a close, to whom can you entrust your tears?

Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Art of Vietnam

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