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

76 A mystery has remained surrounding who “Nguyen Mai Thu” was, though his name has been repeated on the art market for the past twenty-five years. The “Thu” is always legible on his works, on one canvas only, the “Mai” is present in full, but the “Nguyen” is still subject to caution. Without talent, an unknown painter sinks into oblivion but Nguyen Mai Thu does not fall into this category. On the contrary, Nguyen Mai Thu has enjoyed international success at auction, thanks to the quality of his work as a landscapist and genre painter. Despite only having a brief career spanning barely twenty years, Nguyen Mai Thu was artfully able to fuse his French painting education of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Indochine, founded in 1925, with originality derived from local inspiration and sensitivity, from the bustle of Tonkinese life and the infinite variations of nature. Nguyen Mai Thu’s early life likely played a role in his success. He was probably born c.1914 in what was then called the Haut-Tonkin. As a child from a family of the provincial upper class (generally the only ones to apply to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Indochine), he affirmed throughout his life an attraction for the landscapes of his birthplace : mountainous, covered with mists and jungles, crossed by the Red River and interspersed with villages and peasant mar- kets, these scenes provided endless inspiration. It is suspected that he attended the preparatory course at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Indochine around 1930, under the direction of Nam S ơ n (another successful painter). Unlike others, Nguyen Mai Thu did not pursue his studies at the Ecole, an event that was not uncommon at the time. It is imagined that the young artist might have had a studio in Hanoi in the early 1930s, like others of his ilk, but no directory has kept track of it. Whether or not he ever exhibited his work is unclear. Some of his paintings bear a number on the back, which could allude to an exhibition, but may also be indicative of a commercial inventory. It is probable that Nguyen Mai Thu sold his paintings, like others, through decoration galleries located in Hanoi or Haiphong. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that some of his paintings curi- ously exist in several identical copies, for example views of Halong Bay, or views of the Bayon in Angkor. In addition, other scenes ex- ist both under his own name and in versions by others, in particu- lar by Tran Van (or Nguyen) Giap (although the quality is lower). There is more : on the back of one work from c.1934, the words “Please take delivery on my behalf of this painting ; pay it eight piasters and send it to Haiphong’’ are inscribed, written by an em- ployee of Poinsard et Veyret to the company’s accountant. Such a phrase, coupled with the inexpensive price, indicates an artist under contract who is still struggling to make himself known. Nevertheless, in hindsight, his originality and skill were evident from the beginning. Nguyen Mai Thu’s painting is dominated by the landscape gen- re, which he illustrated in views of the countryside around Hanoi during the 1930s. The palette is often bright and clear with roads winding towards blue horizons in the Haut-Tonkin (perhaps the vicinity of Bac Ha), and sampans moored or floating down the Red River. Village markets teem with life, or a herd of buffalo cross the river in the morning light. At the time, the French and local clien- tele of the time loved his peaceful and picturesque evocations of a countryside where dinh (common houses) and venerable temples alternate with huge banyan trees, the figures within often reduced to silhouettes. From the end of the 1930s, it would seem that Nguyen Mai Thu’s success began, demonstrated by the appearance of larger canvas- es, a possible sign of direct commissions. The two known large canvases which represent dancers from the Highlands of Vietnam, though undated, coincide with both the formats and the palette used by the painter at this time. It shows the obvious affection of the young northern painter for the tribal customs from the Haut- Tonkin. These representations are devoid of any folkloristic in- tention or assumed ethnographic touch. Instead, they are a pure celebration of colour and movement that immediately evoke the tradition of the French Art Deco style. Three other large paintings depicting a woman in áo dài reading, a young girl beside a banana tree and an elegant woman in a boat on a pond probably date from the same period, or from the 1950’s. It is unlikely that these are commissioned portraits as the charac- ters are often subject to stylisation or represented from the side : a concession to the romantic standards of the time and not really the touch of a portraitist. Then, Nguyen Mai Thu’s hypothetical success may have been hampered by war as, after an eclipse of ten years, (since no paint- ing is attested between 1938 and 1950), Nguyen Mai Thu returned to Hanoi where he recommenced painting. Here village scenes, country people and market views continued to be his inspiration, but above all Ha Long Bay seems to have occupied his attention until 1954. After this date he mysteriously ceased to paint, either due to exile or death. It is probably in his last works that Nguyen Mai Thu showed the full measure of his talent. A painter of light, always attentive to atmosphere. There is a deep melancholy and serenity in his views of the famous bay. Here the artist executes his scenes like an im- pressionist, showing light, perspective and reflection of water, simulating the tonal changes throughout the passing day. His last canvases also show a darkened palette, depicting the bay encased in a twilight glow. There, the light is dimmed, and almost seems to die on the calm of the ocean, while the once soft strokes give way to a thicker technique : the ultimate attempt to exist of a talented artist who would fall into oblivion for decades. A MYSTERY... An essay by Étienne Leterrier Art Consultant, Specialist in Vietnamese Art Aix-Marseille University