MAI TRUNG THU known as MAI THU (1906-1980). Indochina... Lot 164

MAI TRUNG THU known as MAI THU (1906-1980). Indochina School of Fine Arts. Class of 1930. War and its consequences, circa 1968. Double-sided drawing in pencil, ink and wash on paper, well framed under glass. Size: 54x26.5 cm. Although Maï Thu is best known for his famous depictions of Vietnam in his dreams, he is less well known for his rarer committed works on the market. Yet the artist is also a man of conviction: as public opinion shifted in protest at the widespread destruction ravaging the country, particularly following the Tet offensive in 1968, Mai Thu rejected a conflict that many now saw as pointless and fratricidal. His refusal to work for the American gallery Wally Findlay, unlike his friends Vu Cao Dam and Lê Pho, is perhaps a flagrant illustration of this. This period was a turning point for the artist: from the tenderness that usually permeates his works, all that remains are the protagonists, mothers and children prey to the disarray of war and bombardment, which he blithely depicts with wisps of smoke in the background. The scene depicted here is even more incisive, this time depicting an American serviceman seated in an office, triggering a pencil-sketched bomb drop with a flick of his finger. The double-sided drawing is all the more interesting: appearing to reproduce an almost identical scene, the obverse shows wisps of smoke escaping from the machine operated by the soldier, while the reverse explicitly shows the bombardment and the flames licking the outside of his office, with only one door ajar. We can see the underlying criticism here: the harmless gesture of a comfortable man who unconsciously makes himself responsible for a bombardment of which the wisps of smoke are the consequence.