LÊ VAN DÊ (1906-1966). École des Beaux-Arts de... Lot 2

LÊ VAN DÊ (1906-1966). École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, class of 1930. Director of the Saigon School of Fine Arts in 1954. Profile portrait of a young French woman, circa 1935. Painting on framed silk signed lower left with the artist's name and red stamp. Dimensions: 41x26.5 cm (view). One of the first generation of artists to graduate from the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine in 1930, alongside Le Pho, Mai Thu and Nguyen Phan Chanh, Lê Van Dê was awarded a scholarship the same year, enabling him to continue his studies at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he was a pupil of Jean Pierre Laurens. He was soon noticed when he exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français between 1932 and 1934. The French government bought one of his paintings, a real consecration for the young artist, which was later confirmed, notably in Italy, when the Vatican commissioned him to decorate the Asian and Australian rooms of the International Catholic Press Exhibition. He returned to Vietnam in 1939, where, on the strength of his successes, he was appointed president of FARTA (Foyer de l'Art Annamite), before later receiving several important commissions, including the creation of a Vietnamese stamp at the request of H.M. Bao Dai, and the design of the podium from which Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence. An artist praised and admired in the West, his return to his homeland was also crowned with success: in 1954, he was appointed director of the Saigon School of Fine Arts. The work we present is similar to the European portraits he produced in Paris in the 1930s. Essentially portraits of women, sometimes in oil, sometimes, as here, on silk, the artist combines European influence through the subject and its placement in profile, and Vietnamese influence through the technique and the discreet but present reminder of the stamp and signature in Sino-Vietnamese characters.