Bùi Xuân Phái

Biography

In 1984, four years before his death, Bùi Xuân Phái showed his work for the first time in a solo exhibition. It also turned out to be the only one in his lifetime. Twenty-four paintings were bought on the opening day, and state television, for the first time, told his story in a programme on literature and art.

His family came from the village of Kim Hoàng in Hoài Đức district (the former province of Hà Tây), but he was born in Hanoi on 1 September 1920. His father, Bùi Xuân Hồ, had been educated in the French colonial system; the relationship between father and son, as the story goes, was not a good one. In his youth Phái drew cartoons for newspapers and with the fees enrolled in the introductory course at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d’Indochine, the Indochina College of Fine Arts. He studied there from 1941 to 1945 in the painting department and belonged to the last generation of its students, together with Nguyễn Sáng, Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm and Dương Bích Liên. It is said that at twenty he had already sold his first painting and that several of his works were selected for an exhibition in Tokyo; I have not been able to check this against documents. After finishing school he joined the August resistance movement in Hanoi and from 1947 to 1952 took part in artistic work in the north of the country. In 1952 he returned to Hanoi and settled in the house at 87 Thuốc Bắc Street, where he lived until his death. In 1957 he joined the Vietnam Fine Arts Association.

In 1956–1957 Phái taught at the Hanoi College of Fine Arts.

In those same years he supported the Nhân Văn–Giai Phẩm movement, which campaigned for freedom of creative expression and cultural freedom. He was sent for labour re-education to a carpentry workshop in Nam Định, and the college management suggested that he submit a letter of resignation. From 1957 his chances of working in public narrowed. To earn money he made illustrations and humorous drawings for newspapers under the pseudonyms Pi Ha, Vi Vu and Ly.

Phái’s main subject was the streets of the Old Quarter of Hanoi in the 1950s to 1970s. The houses in his paintings are often ringed with a heavy dark outline, and the streets themselves are almost empty of people, as in “Deserted Street” (1981) and “An Ox Cart in Old Quarter” (1972). Among his early subjects is “Resistance in Hanoi” (1966). Another constant theme was chèo, the Vietnamese folk theatre: “Make-up Before a Cheo Representation” and “Cheo Stage” (both 1968), “A Cheo Couple” (1967), “Before Curtain Time” (1984). He also painted portraits, village scenes, nudes and still lifes. Materials were often short. He worked in oil, watercolour, pastel, charcoal and pencil, on canvas, paper, wooden boards, sheets of newspaper and even on cigarette packets. He is known to have exchanged drawings and paintings for the basic needs of his family. He worked a great deal as a book designer and newspaper illustrator. For the design of the book “Hề chèo” (“The Chèo Clown”) he received an international award in Leipzig in 1982. Among his other honours were the National Fine Arts Exhibition award in 1946 and 1980 and the Capital Fine Arts Awards of 1969, 1981, 1983 and 1984.

Phái died in Hanoi on 24 June 1988. In 1996 he was posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize in Literature and Art, the state prize, and in 1997 the Medal of Vietnamese Fine Arts. In 2008, on the anniversary of his birth, a prize in his name, “For the Love of Hanoi”, was established. Streets bear his name in Hanoi, Đồng Hới and Da Nang. On 1 September 2019 Google marked his birthday with a Doodle.