Adam's FINE ASIAN ART 28th,29th,30th Preview June 2022

Notes: 1. Lê Qu ố c L ộ c was born in Tu ấ n Quang hamlet in Phùng H ư ng Commune, Khoái Châu District, H ư ng Yên Province in 1918. He studied in the lacquer department of the École des Beaux Arts de l’Indochine starting from 1936 with professor Joseph Inguim- berty (1896-1971) and graduated in 1942. He then opened his own lacquer workshop located at 42 Lò Đúc Street in Hanoï along with other artists such as Phạm H ậ u, Nguy ễ n Gia Trí, Nguy ễ n Văn T ỵ and Hoàng Tích Chù. Starting from August 1945, during the First Indochina War, Lê Qu ố c L ộ c joined the Vi ệ t Minh. Between 1945 and 1946, he worked at the Department of Propaganda in North Vietnam. Later on, he was put in charge of the Painting Department at the Department of Propaganda of Military Zone 3 (1947-1954). Between 1955 and 1959, he worked at the Vietnam Arts and Crafts Association and eventually became a member of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association in 1957. After the division of Vietnam following the war, he was appointed the deputy director of the Gia Đinh (Saigon) School of Applied Arts, whose founder was Lê Văn Đ ệ (1906-1966) where he taught from 1959 to 1967 and contributed to the rise of new artists. In 1968, he moved back to Hanoi to work at the Vietnam Fine Arts Association until 1978. Through his career, he was awarded numerous prizes amongst which: the National Fine Arts Exhibition Award (1st Prize in 1960, 2nd Prize in 1955, 1958 and 1962); the Craft Exhibition Award of the GDR (1st Prize in 1978 and 2nd Prize in 1974); the Ho Chi Minh Prize for Literature and Art (in 2000). 2. This screen, a masterpiece by world-renowned lacquer artist Lê Qu ố c L ộ c, is typical of the artist’s work, in the sense that the predominant colors (or tones) are red and dark brown combined with gilt. It depicts a bird’s eye-viewed animated landscape, as seen from the top of a hill, crossed by Mekong river arms. The in-depth perspective is created by a succession of grounds. In the first two ones, the artist used a gilt lacquer to depict trees, including palm trees. In the middle one, on the left, is a traditional thatched houses hamlet. Then come Mekong river arms in alternance with isthmuses. The composition may roughly be described as being divided into two parts by a diagonal going from the upper left corner to the lower right corner - thereby creating two triangular shapes - and playing with empty and full: the lower left part, a full one dominated by red tones, is mostly devoted to the village scene and to the depiction of nature; the upper right part, an empty one dominated by dark tones, mostly concentrates on the depiction of the Mekong River. This work also stands out because of its profusion of details, amidst which: clothes hanging on a line in the hamlet; sampan boats with fishermen sailing the river; walking peasants or water carriers; a silent street market scene in front of a thatched house on the lower right corner etc. Also of importance is the year during which this screen was cre- ated, i.e. 1943, a very special one for Lê Qu ố c L ộ c as well as a very creative one. Indeed, not only was his first son (Lê Huy Văn) born that year, but also he set up his own lacquer workshop and created several masterpieces such as an almost identical screen and another screen depicting Phnom Penh, both sold at ASIUM Paris, France. 3. Recently, Lê Qu ố c L ộ c has been highly prized and valued on the art market by knowledgeable collectors, thereby acknowledg- ing his prominent position in the history of Vietnamese Art. Indeed, an eight-fold lacquer screen depicting Phnom Penh achieved an impressive €1,222,000 at a public auction in Paris (2021-10-21, lot 114). In 2020, another version of our screen fetched €357,500 at another public auction in Paris (2020-11-03, lot 176). ⒸDR A REDISCOVERED MASTERPIECE BY LÊ QU Ố C L Ộ C (1894-1989)