Lot 19

Wally Findlay Galleries, New York, 1979 (no. 70589, label on backing verso, accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, dated 14 August 1979)
Private collection, Melbourne

The present lot will be included in the artist's forthcoming catalogue raisonné.

Vietnamese artist, Vu Cao Dam, played a pivotal role in the development of 20th century modern Vietnamese painting. Born in Hanoi, Vu Cao Dam studied at the Indochina College of Fine Arts (École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine) graduating in 1931 as a student of sculpture, before moving to Paris on a scholarship. Initially, he was to study sculpture at the École du Louvre but decided instead to focus on painting. After spending this time in Paris' artistic circles, he remained in France, never to return to Vietnam although forever retaining his heritage within his art practice.

In the early 20th century, an interest in Western art and culture was already infiltrating Japan and China predominantly, soon to be followed by Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries. There were, at this time, three applied arts schools in Vietnam: Th? D?u M?t, Biên-Hoà and Gia Ð?nh. While these schools were largely founded with the aim of encouraging local traditional craftsmanship, many artists of the time were atune to the demands of a growing European clientele and the art styles they were promoting.

Vu Cao Dam's father encouraged him to live in France, after having visited himself as a young man with his own artistic talents. Le Ph?, Vu Cao Dam and Mai Trung Th? were all three graduates of the School of Fine Arts of Indochina and decided to leave Vietnam to settle permanently in France where they could immerse themselves in foreign art circles. Vu Cao Dam thrived in Paris, settling comfortably into the artistic milieu of the bustling city. Although he immersed himself into the social and cultural stimuli of Paris, he did not mirror the artistic style of the French in his subject matter, continuing to honour his homeland in his depictions of the Vietnamese people, folklore, poetry, and landscape. Dam predominantly painted on silk with gouache using traditional Asian techniques, but after living in Paris for nearly twenty years he relocated to the south of France with his wife, Renee, and evolved into new mediums such as tempera. His style, too, changed after residing in southern France studying Matisse, Bonnard, Van Gogh, and other Impressionists, and befriending his neighbour, Marc Chagall, amongst others.

Dam mainly painted figures of women, alongside children, musical instruments, flowers, or horses, with the figure of Kim Van Kieu, from the Vietnamese poem The Tale of Kieu, a favourite. His colour palette favoured pink, lilac, yellow, blue, and shades of white with black detailing. This often reflected a duality between Eastern and Western preferences, with the influence of Chagall very apparent. By the 1960s, Dam was painting with oils on canvas, driven largely by his representation with the American gallery, Wally Findlay.

Dam exhibited his work at annual exhibitions in Paris, such as the Salon d' Automne and the Salon des Tuileries, as well as numerous other exhibitions in southern France. More recently his paintings have been showcased to the world, with exhibits in London, Brussels, Sweden, and Switzerland. Vu Cao Dam remains one of the most important southeast Asian artists of the 20th century, and a fundamental exponent of Vietnamese modernism.

Olivia Fuller
Head of Art