Lê Phổ

Biography

In 1937 Lê Phổ came to Paris for the International Exposition, where he was responsible for the Indochinese section, and he stayed in France for the rest of his life.

He was born on 2 August 1907 in Hà Đông, not far from Hanoi, into a mandarin family; his father is said to have been the viceroy of Tonkin. His early education combined the Chinese literary tradition with French schooling. At sixteen he entered the Professional School of Hanoi, where drawing, painting, proportion and colour were taught.

From 1925 to 1930 Lê Phổ studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi, from the year it opened. His main teachers were the French artists Victor Tardieu and Joseph Inguimberty. Students were introduced to European painting and at the same time encouraged to try silk and lacquer. On graduating he won a scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where for about two years he worked under Tardieu, a friend and contemporary of Henri Matisse.

In 1931 Lê Phổ went to Paris to help with the school’s display at the International Colonial Exhibition, hanging paintings and placing sculpture in the Indochinese pavilion. During the trip he attended classes at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and visited Belgium and Italy. He was especially drawn to the art of the European Renaissance and to religious painting.

In 1932 or 1933 he returned to Hanoi. He taught drawing at the Lycée Albert Sarraut and at the school of fine arts, and took commissions: he painted portraits of Emperor Bảo Đại and worked for his palace in Huế.

The exhibition of 1937 changed his life. He gave up his teaching post, came to Paris as a delegate and a member of the exposition’s jury, and decided to stay.

In 1938 his first solo exhibition opened in Paris, and it began his successful career in Europe. He then showed his work in France (Paris, Nice, Lyon, Rouen), in Morocco, in Brussels and in New York. Lê Phổ was one of four graduates of the Hanoi school who built careers in Paris; the other three were Mai Trung Thứ, Vũ Cao Đàm and Lê Thị Lựu.

His work is usually divided into three periods. The early one covers his years in Hanoi and the first years in Paris: Vietnamese landscapes of his youth, paintings full of nostalgia. The next is called the Romanet period, after the French gallery owner who became his chief promoter; it is usually dated 1946–1962. Lê Phổ still painted on silk, but the colours grew more intense; motherhood and family were frequent subjects, and in mixed media he introduced oil paint into works close to traditional gouache and ink. “Mère et Enfant” (“Mother and Child”) and “Les Baigneuses” (“The Bathers”) belong to this time. In 1963 the American gallery owner Wally Findlay noticed his work and ordered many canvases for the American market. So began the last, Findlay period: Lê Phổ increasingly painted in oil on canvas, the brushwork became bolder and the palette brighter. The colour in these works is linked to his admiration for Matisse. Flower arrangements appeared among his subjects, alongside Vietnamese women and gardens.

His women are usually elongated figures, which has been compared to the influence of Surrealism. Among his early works is “Harmony in Green: The Two Sisters” (1938, ink and gouache on silk, 54 × 45 cm), held by National Gallery Singapore: two women in traditional dress against a green landscape. Besides painting, Lê Phổ worked in lacquer and was involved in decoration, fashion and jewellery design. He signed his works in Chinese and in French, and often marked his watercolours with a seal.

The exhibition “Lê Phô, Mai-Thu, Vu Cao Dam, pioneers of Vietnamese modern art in France” was held at the Musée Cernuschi in Paris from 11 October 2024 to 4 May 2025. In 2025 his work was shown in “City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s–1940s” at National Gallery Singapore. Lê Phổ died in Paris on 12 December 2001.