Nguyễn Gia Trí (1909-1993)
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The secret of art is not knowing what to do.
Leave the blur, keep the shadow… - Nguyễn Gia Trí
Nguyễn Gia Trí was a Vietnamese painter who is best known for his work in lacquer. He was also an illustrator/cartoonist who commented on French colonialism and other social and political issues. His paintings of women have been described as “luscious” and “magical.”
Revered as the father on modern Vietnamese lacquer painting, Nguyễn Gia Trí helping to revive a traditional medium that used the sap of the Asian sumac tree mixed with pine sap to create a glossy, translucent medium. Some of Trí’s finest lacquer paintings included crushed eggshells, gold leaf and other materials along with powdered pigments that have been buffed, scraped and polished into an even finish.
Nguyễn Gia Trí was born in 1908 in Hà Đông, the former capital city of Hà Tây Province in Vietnam (now an urban district of Hanoi) into a family of embroiderers. Trí received his art education at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, graduating in 1936. At the École Trí studied with Joseph Inguimberty, who encouraged students to study French modern art while also exploring the traditional Vietnamese medium of lacquer. Inguimberty had become interested in lacquer after a visit to the Confucian Temple of Literature in Hanoi in 1927. He then invited the master artisan Đinh Văn Thành to teach lacquer techniques. This pleased Gia Trí who wanted to study with Vietnamese teachers for patriotic reasons. When he graduated in 1936, Trí’s final painting was on silk, but soon afterwards he began to work mainly in lacquer.
An artist who knew him in the late 1930’s once recalled visiting Trí and making the following observations:
I have known Nguyễn Gia Trí since October 1939, the first time I met him at the daily newspaper. He wears very close fitting glasses, his teeth very are strong, very white, and he wears a hui ‘crab’ (short haircut) and looks like a athlete. He has muscular arms and when grinding his pictures does not tire. His painting shop is on Quan Ngua Street (now Hoang Hoa Tham street). Sometimes he just talked to us while hand-polishing paintings soaked in the water tank. He grinds passionately, not mechanically, making creative movements.
After graduating from the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Nguyen Gia Trí joined the Tu Luc Van Doàn (Self-Reliance Literary Group) which published poetry and prose shaped by nationalist and anticolonial sentiments. Trí contributed to two magazines, Phong Hóa (Customs) and Ngày Nay (Today), both of which were widely read. In the first art exhibition organized by the Société Annamite d'Encouragement à l'Art et à l'Industrie (SADEAI), the Annamese Society for the Support of Art and Industry, founded in 1935, Tri’s works were singled out for attention. A local French collector, Madam Drouin, became his patron and in 1938 Tri obtained his first official commission from the Governor-General Brévié, to decorate his palace in Hanoi, the current residence of the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
As he art developed, Nguyen Gia Trí “transformed himself into a monk, isolated and pure, holy,” working privately on paintings of everyday life and young women. On January 11, 1939, for the opening of an exhibition at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the artist re-emerged, surprising the Hanoi public.
His brillian new lacquer paintings showed people in the countryside, festivals and elegant women. His use of silver, gold and eggshells in lacquer created an entrancing and dreamlike effect.
In response to this exhibition, the Hanoi-based French art collector and critic, Claude Mahoudeau wrote:
Here at the front of the room are the lacquers of Mr. Nguyễn Gia Trí. We have the good fortune to come across a passage written by the Goncourt brothers that could well have been for these lacquers:
‘He has redefined grace; this grace is the little something that clothes a woman of charm, of coquetry, of a beauty beyond physical beauty. This grace is a subtlety that resembles the smile of a line, the soul of a form, the spirituality of an object. All the seductions of the female at ease, the languor, the idleness, the strut, the lengthening, the nonchalance, the cadence of the poses, the suppleness of the feminine body and the play of the slender fingers on the grip of the fans.’
There is nothing left to do but admire the creations of an artist whose contribution to this exhibition is considerable. The artist's works dazzled everyone.
At the end of 1940, during increasing civil unrest, Nguyễn Gia Trí, was sent by the French government to a remote area where the ‘Muong’ people lived. He stayed there under house arrest and at one point, was also detained at the notorious Son La prison along with other members of the Tu Luc Van Doàn. Trí was reportedly tortured, which “caused him to have lung disease and tremble. The also used a metal ring strapped to his head, causing him serious injury.” By 1943 he had been released and his works appeared in the 'Salon Unique' Fine Arts Exhibition in Hanoi to positive reviews. In the years following the end of Second World Trí travelled to Hong Kong with Jean Volang. In Hong Kong painted he oil portraits, then returned to Saigon in 1952 and married Nguyen Thi Kim.
Upon his return to Vietnam, Trí created many small lacquer paintings, including nudes, images of young women, landscapes and garden scenes. French collectors continued to acquire his work even as Trí became an increasingly reclusive figure. During the years of war with the United States he continued working, “hidden in plain sight” as one friend later recalled. During this period Trí’s style shifted, becoming more abstract and metaphysical.
At the conclusion of the Vietnam war, beginning in the early 1980s, overseas Vietnamese citizens searched for and paid bribes to acquire Trí’s paintings, which the new government now considered national property. In 1989 the Vietnamese the Ministry of Culture and Information officially recognized Nguyễn Gia Trí as one of ten contemporary artists who shaped modern visual art in Vietnam, effectively declaring him a national treasure.
In 1991, Nguyễn Gia Trí was invited to Hanoi to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. The city soon purchased his large lacquer painting Garden of the North and Central Vietnam for permanent display in the Hanoi City Museum of Fine Arts. Along with the painting, a large selection of sketches, studies, small paintings drawings and materials from the artist’s studio was also acquired by the museum.
Nguyễn Gia Trí died June 20, 1993 in Hồ Chí Minh City. In 2012, Nguyễn Gia Trí was posthumously awarded the Hồ Chí Minh Prize in honor of his significant contributions to Vietnamese art.
Nguyễn Gia Trí was a Vietnamese painter who is best known for his work in lacquer. He was also an illustrator/cartoonist who commented on French colonialism and other social and political issues. His paintings of women have been described as “luscious” and “magical.”
Revered as the father on modern Vietnamese lacquer painting, Nguyễn Gia Trí helping to revive a traditional medium that used the sap of the Asian sumac tree mixed with pine sap to create a glossy, translucent medium. Some of Trí’s finest lacquer paintings included crushed eggshells, gold leaf and other materials along with powdered pigments that have been buffed, scraped and polished into an even finish.
Nguyễn Gia Trí was born in 1908 in Hà Đông, the former capital city of Hà Tây Province in Vietnam (now an urban district of Hanoi) into a family of embroiderers. Trí received his art education at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, graduating in 1936. At the École Trí studied with Joseph Inguimberty, who encouraged students to study French modern art while also exploring the traditional Vietnamese medium of lacquer. Inguimberty had become interested in lacquer after a visit to the Confucian Temple of Literature in Hanoi in 1927. He then invited the master artisan Đinh Văn Thành to teach lacquer techniques. This pleased Gia Trí who wanted to study with Vietnamese teachers for patriotic reasons. When he graduated in 1936, Trí’s final painting was on silk, but soon afterwards he began to work mainly in lacquer.
An artist who knew him in the late 1930’s once recalled visiting Trí and making the following observations:
I have known Nguyễn Gia Trí since October 1939, the first time I met him at the daily newspaper. He wears very close fitting glasses, his teeth very are strong, very white, and he wears a hui ‘crab’ (short haircut) and looks like a athlete. He has muscular arms and when grinding his pictures does not tire. His painting shop is on Quan Ngua Street (now Hoang Hoa Tham street). Sometimes he just talked to us while hand-polishing paintings soaked in the water tank. He grinds passionately, not mechanically, making creative movements.
After graduating from the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Nguyen Gia Trí joined the Tu Luc Van Doàn (Self-Reliance Literary Group) which published poetry and prose shaped by nationalist and anticolonial sentiments. Trí contributed to two magazines, Phong Hóa (Customs) and Ngày Nay (Today), both of which were widely read. In the first art exhibition organized by the Société Annamite d'Encouragement à l'Art et à l'Industrie (SADEAI), the Annamese Society for the Support of Art and Industry, founded in 1935, Tri’s works were singled out for attention. A local French collector, Madam Drouin, became his patron and in 1938 Tri obtained his first official commission from the Governor-General Brévié, to decorate his palace in Hanoi, the current residence of the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
As he art developed, Nguyen Gia Trí “transformed himself into a monk, isolated and pure, holy,” working privately on paintings of everyday life and young women. On January 11, 1939, for the opening of an exhibition at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the artist re-emerged, surprising the Hanoi public.
His brillian new lacquer paintings showed people in the countryside, festivals and elegant women. His use of silver, gold and eggshells in lacquer created an entrancing and dreamlike effect.
In response to this exhibition, the Hanoi-based French art collector and critic, Claude Mahoudeau wrote:
Here at the front of the room are the lacquers of Mr. Nguyễn Gia Trí. We have the good fortune to come across a passage written by the Goncourt brothers that could well have been for these lacquers:
‘He has redefined grace; this grace is the little something that clothes a woman of charm, of coquetry, of a beauty beyond physical beauty. This grace is a subtlety that resembles the smile of a line, the soul of a form, the spirituality of an object. All the seductions of the female at ease, the languor, the idleness, the strut, the lengthening, the nonchalance, the cadence of the poses, the suppleness of the feminine body and the play of the slender fingers on the grip of the fans.’
There is nothing left to do but admire the creations of an artist whose contribution to this exhibition is considerable. The artist's works dazzled everyone.
At the end of 1940, during increasing civil unrest, Nguyễn Gia Trí, was sent by the French government to a remote area where the ‘Muong’ people lived. He stayed there under house arrest and at one point, was also detained at the notorious Son La prison along with other members of the Tu Luc Van Doàn. Trí was reportedly tortured, which “caused him to have lung disease and tremble. The also used a metal ring strapped to his head, causing him serious injury.” By 1943 he had been released and his works appeared in the 'Salon Unique' Fine Arts Exhibition in Hanoi to positive reviews. In the years following the end of Second World Trí travelled to Hong Kong with Jean Volang. In Hong Kong painted he oil portraits, then returned to Saigon in 1952 and married Nguyen Thi Kim.
Upon his return to Vietnam, Trí created many small lacquer paintings, including nudes, images of young women, landscapes and garden scenes. French collectors continued to acquire his work even as Trí became an increasingly reclusive figure. During the years of war with the United States he continued working, “hidden in plain sight” as one friend later recalled. During this period Trí’s style shifted, becoming more abstract and metaphysical.
At the conclusion of the Vietnam war, beginning in the early 1980s, overseas Vietnamese citizens searched for and paid bribes to acquire Trí’s paintings, which the new government now considered national property. In 1989 the Vietnamese the Ministry of Culture and Information officially recognized Nguyễn Gia Trí as one of ten contemporary artists who shaped modern visual art in Vietnam, effectively declaring him a national treasure.
In 1991, Nguyễn Gia Trí was invited to Hanoi to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. The city soon purchased his large lacquer painting Garden of the North and Central Vietnam for permanent display in the Hanoi City Museum of Fine Arts. Along with the painting, a large selection of sketches, studies, small paintings drawings and materials from the artist’s studio was also acquired by the museum.
Nguyễn Gia Trí died June 20, 1993 in Hồ Chí Minh City. In 2012, Nguyễn Gia Trí was posthumously awarded the Hồ Chí Minh Prize in honor of his significant contributions to Vietnamese art.