Vietnamese paintings to be auctioned in Hong Kong

Late painter Bui Xuan Phai.

Vu Cao Dam’s “Trong Vuon” (In the garden) oil painting will be auctioned at the starting price from $25,600-38,400. A graduate of the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Indochine in 1931, Vu Cao Dam is one of the most important Vietnamese painters of the 20th century. Born in Hanoi in 1908, he migrated to Paris in the 1930's and moved to the south of France in 1949 where Marc Chagall was his neighbour and greatly influenced his work. Vu Cao Dam was also strongly influenced by the French impressionists, especially Matisse and Bonnard.

Hong Viet Dung’s “Con Duong Song” (Living Road) oil painting will have starting price from $15,000 to $21,700. Dung was born in 1962 in Hanoi and graduated with a degree in Painting from the Hanoi Industrial College of Fine Art in 1984. He usually depicts solitary figures, sometimes holding a simple object. He uses pale and distinctly muted colours to bring to the foreground the calmness and contemplation of his subjects. Dung is a devote Buddhist and what he conveys in his paintings is his kind of meditation. He seems to bring into his works the essentials basis of a painting, leaving the viewers to use them as a stage for creating their own images and reflecting upon them. Dung’s works have been exhibited in several countries: the USSR (1988), Germany (1994), Singapore (1995, 1996, 1999), Japan (1996), Hong Kong (1996, 1998, 2000), Norway (1997), USA (1998, 2001), Australia (1999) and Great Britain (1994, 1998, 2000). He has also participated in the Europ'Art International Art Fair in Geneva, Switzerland. His work can be found in the collection of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum.

Late painter Bui Xuan Phai’s “Pho Hang Bac” (Hang Bac Street) oil painting will have starting price from $10,200 to $15,300. Phai (1920-1988) was one of the most remarkable, most charming and most unusual figures of Vietnamese modern art.