Le Pho

Private Collection, Belgium

The work is in good condition overall. There is evidence of minor wear and losses on the right and left edges of the work due to abrasions with the frame, but this does not affect the overall image, as they are covered by the frame itself. No restoration has been detected. Framed under Plexiglas.
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Much has been revered about Vietnamese modern paintings, notably the local artists’ talents in merging their cultural handicrafts with a European aesthetic. One such artistic expression that gained prominence during the turn of the century was the use of silk paired together with oil or watercolors to create a certain ambience and style within the paintings. A few Vietnamese artists also chose to dilute the pigment of the watercolors with local teas, thereby establishing a translucent effect in the overall artworks, as well as a subtle cross cultural autonomy over the art form. Many of these paintings were portrayals of daily society, especially the everyday routines and interactions of the elite. Together these works have come to represent a window into Vietnam’s days of yore from the early 19^th century to the early forties, a period that remained untouched by foreign colonialization or the local infighting brought on by opposing political agendas.

Le Pho has garnered himself a place in Vietnam’s art canon, for his oeuvre is a collection of works that are poetical depictions of domestic scenes that were memories from the artist’s own childhood of growing up in Hanoi. The present painting Maternity perfectly exemplifies the classical themes of womanhood that have long inspired the artist’s paintings dedicated to women, children, and family life. The artist was a classically trained painter who studied at the Fine Arts College of Indochina, and was one of the first students to be educated under the tutorage of Victor Tardieu, the founder of the school as well as the only French national who championed the creative identity of Vietnamese artists.

Prior to the foundation of the school with its artistic intent, many of the artworks created by the Vietnamese were exported for monetary gain, and not valued for their aesthetic or cultural significance. However, with the arrival of the Fine Arts College of Indochina this colonialist mentality soon changed, and many of the individuals who were part of the first graduating class from the school went to exhibit in Europe, and establish the first wave of Vietnamese modern artists. Le Pho was part of this graduating class, and his oeuvre has crossed all continents, a testament to the artist’s international influence and celebrity as a Vietnamese painter in a foreign locale.

Le Pho’s favored subject matter revolved around what he deemed to be beautiful and pleasing to the eye, thereby much of his paintings are visual homages to flora and fauna, and elegant women either alone or shown with their children in private interludes as vignettes from family life. Maternity continues in this vein, for in the painting a woman is portrayed breastfeeding her son, an act that is wholly grounded within the definition of femininity. The interaction between a mother and a child is a universal representation that celebrates the very foundations of human existence. A favorite theme within Le Pho’s paintings, it should be noted that many of the works that centered on matriarchy only showed the mother and her child in the composition. No other person inhabited the scene, lest they disturb the harmony of the two individuals in their private moment of bliss.

The present painting was created during the forties, a key period in the artist’s life for it was when he was permanently residing in Paris, a voluntary exile abroad who was redefining himself as a Vietnamese artist in Europe. As an individual whose romanticized depictions of Vietnamese daily life did not fare well with the Communist ideals of the early forties, Le Pho left Vietnam to live in Europe and remained there the rest of his life. The artist was highly skilled in painting with oil and with watercolors, and often chose to paint on silk rather than canvas to instill an ethereal and otherworldly charm to the works. While his oil paintings were reminiscent of the Impressionists with their thick impastos and soft color palette, it was his watercolor and gouache paintings that reflected a softer side to the artist. Many of those works were ideal portrayals of womanhood. Perhaps with the fragile nature of the fabric paired together with the delicate charm of his female subjects, Le Pho chose to paint his Mother and Child archetype on this specific medium, a visual commentary on the familial bond of this primal relationship.

Within the artist’s oeuvre there is a distinct appropriation with how he merged his Vietnamese ideology with a European painting tradition. Prior to Victor Tardieu’s arrival to Hanoi in the early twenties, there was no true identity in local Vietnamese paintings. However, with the French teacher’s encouragement and patience, he taught many local artists how to combine their personal histories with Western painterly techniques. As the country was under French colonialist rule during this period, it is no surprise that many of the artists that the Vietnamese painters familiarized themselves with included Henri Matisse and Claude Monet, two individuals who had a definite impact on French artistic expression. Tardieu himself studied alongside Matisse back in Paris, and together with this experience and respect for the older artist, he shared this influence with the local Vietnamese artists when he founded the school in 1925 in Hanoi.

While Le Pho’s oil paintings may call forth the works of the Impressionist artists, it was in his watercolor and gouache works where the artist was able to highlight his skill in painting the human form. Within the present painting there are allusions to Matisse’s portrayal of the female body, such as the shape of the woman’s face, as well as her accentuated neck that serves to further enhance her feminine spirit and role in the painting’s narrative. The artist oftentimes chose to portray his women in slight profile, rather than depicting their beauty in its entirety. This deliberate posturing of the women established a certain mystique in the paintings, and in Maternity this allure is expressed as the familial relationship between herself and her son.

An artist whose oeuvre is a visual celebration of a specific period in Vietnam’s history, Le Pho painted works that act as a guide to a world that no longer exists. To look at his works is to share in the artist’s memory as a youth growing up in Hanoi during the turn of the century, and to experience similar emotions of nostalgia, happiness, and loss. Maternity is the artist’s celebration of a woman and her child, and the strength of their eternal bond. It can be said that time stands still in Le Pho’s paintings, and as seen in Maternity, it is the lives of these women who have come to define Vietnam at the turn of the century.