ENVOY OF ART Exhibition
Artist NGUYEN TRI MINH (15/12/1924 – 16/10/2010)
• Nguyen Tri Minh and his impressions of the landscape
For the first time since 1975, Nguyen Tri Minh has a solo exhibition in Saigon. The exhibition Envoy Of Art displays 24 artworks, mainly painted with acrylic, belonging to the collection of Ms. Pauline Nhung Nguyen – artist Nguyen Tri Minh’s life partner. In the last decades of his life, mainly in the United States, Nguyen Tri Minh painted most works in this exhibition.
Collector Van Quan provides companionship throughout the exhibition. He said: “Overseas, during exhibition trips or when settling later, Nguyen Tri Minh continued to promote the beauty of nature, with large-scale murals, such as paintings of waterlily ponds and willows trees in Giverny, the hometown of famous painter Claude Monet in France.”
Nguyen Tri Minh was born in Saigon Chinatown, had an artistic talent since childhood, so he studied at Gia Dinh School of Decorative Arts from 1942 to 1946, graduating valedictorian. He masterfully uses many materials such as oil paints, watercolors, acrylics, lacquers, etc. for his compositions. He mostly composed and taught drawing at home since 1946. According to artist Ha Cam Tam (1933 – 2016): “Nguyen Tri Minh is a pioneer Vietnamese artist in oil painting with a knife (couteau: French; palette knife: English) in the South since 1949.”
In 1959, the artist was invited to participate in the first season of the Biennale de Paris. This prestigious biennial exhibition was initiated by the art critic Raymond Cogniat in 1959 and founded by writer André Malraux when he was the Minister of Culture in France. The main goal is to introduce an overview of young people’s creativities worldwide, creating a place to experience and socialize.
In 1962, he participated in the First Saigon Painting and Sculpture Exhibition. Besides domestic artists, there were also artists from 20 countries, resembling an art fair. In September 1963, he received a scholarship for creating art in the United States for 2 months. He visited many museums and art galleries in Washington, Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. During his stay, he painted nearly 200 landscape paintings, half of which were watercolors (watercolor style) and half oil paintings (neo-impressionism style).
Since the early 1950s, Nguyen Tri Minh had intended to study art abroad or participate in international art exhibitions to learn, exchange, and introduce the identity of Vietnamese paintings.
Collector Van Quan shared: “Having just graduated from school in 1946, Nguyen Tri Minh was invited to participate in exhibitions in his hometown and abroad, from Opera House in Saigon to the Paris Museum of Modern Art (France). His impressionist painting style is a strange fusion of East and West, with free-spirited brushstrokes with bright, harmonious colors. As a result, his paintings are in the collections of fans around the world. He uses various materials such as oil paints, watercolors, acrylics, lacquers, etc. Settling in the United States in 1975, he continues to compose and teach drawing as he did in Vietnam. With a knack for landscape painting, he was famous for his works of lotus ponds and bamboo ponds in his hometown, and he became increasingly famous when he went abroad.”
“It is very proud of the Vietnamese painting industry when students oversubscribe to his annual basic drawing class at a university in New York. He became an envoy of art for Vietnam and the United States. He died on October 16, 2010, in Dallas, USA, at 86. He passed away in the mourning of his life partner, Ms. Pauline Nhung Nguyen, and his students, including artists and gallery owners who had studied with a beloved teacher from the East.”
Before 1975, Nguyen Tri Minh had about 6 solo exhibitions and nearly 15 group exhibitions in Saigon. At that time, in 1954-1975, he was a very popular artist. In his first solo exhibition in May 1959 at Do Thanh Gallery, he displayed 70 paintings and sold 52.
From 1975 until his death, he lived in the United States, participated in many group exhibitions, and performed many one-person shows about paintings. Over 90% of his paintings from this period belonged to Americans and Westerners.
In the international auction market, for the past 10 years, several dozen works of Nguyen Tri Minh have appeared, most of which have been successfully auctioned.
BTC
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ENVOY OF ART Exhibition
Opening: 6 PM March 3rd, through March 12th, 2023
Location: Vy Gallery, 20 Nguyen Van Thu St., Da Kao Ward, District 1, HCMC
Please park your vehicle at:
- Parking : 02 Mai Thi Lựu street, Dakao, D.1
- Parking: 46 Nguyen Van Thu Str, Dakao, D.1
