Mai Trung Thu (Vietnam, 1906-1980)
Femme au châle rouge (Lady with a Red Shawl)
signed 'MAI THU’ and dated in Chinese ‘1946’ (lower left)
ink and gouache on silk
35.5 x 22 cm. (14 x 8 5/8 in.)
Painted in 1946
one seal of the artist
Provenance
Drouot-Estimations, 17 November 2004, lot 38
Sotheby’s Singapore, 20 April 2005, lot 119
Christie's Hong Kong, 1 December 2022
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Price Realised HKD 1,764,000 at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 December 2022
MAI TRUNG THU, 1946, LA FEMME AU CHÂLE ROUGE (THE WOMAN WITH THE RED SHAWL) OR THE EYES AND THE HEART
In 1946, Mai Trung Thu has been living for the past two years in Vanves, bordering Paris, in an apartment close to where Vu Cao Dam and his family were living. With peace restored, the time was more optimistic even if the privations of the war persisted. The artist exhibited a lot, with success, during the war and his fame grew.
That same year, Ho Chi Minh went to Paris for the historic "Fontainebleau agreements". Mai Thu, Le Pho and Vu Cao Dam met him there. A fresh wind seemed to blow from Vietnam. The man fascinated the entire Vietnamese community, which was lulled into a sweet euphoria where passionate nationalism took precedence over political analysis... Less than 5 years later, an expedited land reform was launched in North Vietnam.
Time seems suspended.
The present painting is part of this intermittence of meaning characteristic of great works. It is a pivotal work in the oeuvre of the painter.
The distinguished young woman elegantly wears the silk ao dai of the 30s, the black tunic and white pants conveying a classical chic. Her red shawl, to which no political significance should be attached, brings a note of whimsy. It reappears in her back bringing a double chromatic rhythm to the painting. It is a modern woman freed from the social and aesthetic constraints of Confucianism that Mai Thu paints for us: her face is applied with make up, her eyebrows are plucked and her lipstick is paired with the modern ao dai: all signs of contestation of Confucianism that still dominated Vietnam when Mai Thu left in 1937. A little haughty, she poses for us, slightly at an angle, without looking directly at us. One hand grasps the shawl, the other wanders. Attachment and wandering are depicted by the painter, like a contradictory posture.
In this work, there is no interior scene where the house and furnishings would identify the Vietnamese character. No typical landscape where bamboo, lotus, or mountains of the "Middle Region" would geographically situate the place. A landscape of bushes and tall grasses, slightly phantasmagorical, more neutral, normally attributed to Asia or to Europe, to Vietnam or to France serves as the background.
The message is clear: the place is universal, the individual remains Vietnamese. While his two companions will take the step of integration, Le Pho, drastically, Vu Cao Dam with restraint, Mai Thu will remain an exile from within.
Using black ink massively, the main identity attribute of Vietnamese artists of the 1930s, Mai Thu places freedom in the person more than in the location. To be enriched by a place without being taken by it. This is what he did in Vietnam until 1937, this is what he did in France until his death in 1980, in France where he rests.
Out of sight or out of mind?
Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Art of Vietnam
