Photograph of Tran Quang Tran (Vietnam, 1900-1969) gifted by architect Tran Hung, son of Tran Quang Tran.

Tran Quang Tran (1900-1969), known as Ngym, and also Nghi Am, is an immensely gifted artist whose talent is yet to be fully discovered. He entered the Hanoi College of Fine Arts in 1927 and graduated in 1932 in the school’s third graduating class. While most students starting school were in the 18-20 age range, he was 27 years old, while his classmate Le Thi Luu was just 16 years old. This third graduating class proved to be rather mediocre: only Le Thi Luu and, to a lesser degree, Nguyen Cao Luyen will stand out for their talent. This is quite a contrast to the first graduating class (1930), with Le Van De, Mai Thu, Nguyen Phan Chanh, and Le Pho, the second (1931) with To Ngoc Van, Vu Cao Dam or the seventh (1936), that of Tran Van Can, Nguyen Gia Tri, Luu Van Sin, among others. He was admitted into the College of Fine Arts after spending years in oil exploitation in Haiphong and then in a lamp factory in Dap Can after finishing his business studies. This early career explains why raw material and technology, rich and modernist concepts, strongly influence the artist’s work.

Even before he graduated, Tran Quang Tran participated – modestly – in the Colonial Exhibition in Paris in 1931. Victor Tardieu entrusted him and other students (Vu Tien Chuc, Luu Dinh Khai, Tran Binh Loc, Pham Quang Hau) with the study of “wrought iron grids and consoles”. That same year, his name appears at the bottom of a ‘Relevé du Mot-Cot’ presented on Plate IX in “Trois Écoles des Beaux-Art de l’Indochine”, a booklet published in Hanoi in 1931 by the General Government of Indochina.