Painters are by nature passionate beings capable of the greatest love. Passion and talent go hand in hand, and when talent finds love, somehow the painting is always a success.

The magnificent lacquer presented here is a perfect example of this.

Hoang Tich Chu painted his wife, Hoang Tuyet Trinh (1918-2012), as she was holding their two years old son Hoang Tich Tri. He executed this work in 1960 based on a drawing he made in 1955.

The painter fell in love with this beautiful young lady in Hanoi, and would later marry her the year he was admitted in the Fine Arts School of Indochina (1936-1941). That same year Nguyen Tien Chung became his best friend as well as his partner, collaborating on works together as well.

Hoang Tuyet Trinh was always there with the artist, fully dedicated to him and the family, helping him to set up his studio in Hanoi, following him in the Ha Bac Province during the war of independence and joining the Vietminh. Along the way, they had 7 children as well. Through the painter's work, she appears with great beauty and elegance - distinguished, refined with subtle shades of makeup, her ao dai while she holds her beloved child dressed in fine clothes. In 1960, the painter who, five years previously, visited his good friend Le Pho, in Paris did not believe in the coerced social realist ideology subjects artists had to paint. Apart from few lacquers offering to this ideology, the painter applied all his talent to the representation of his wife in a phantasmagorical ambiance, where exuberant fauna and flora are well served by his perfect lacquer technique.

His work is the result of strong love and a perfect skill: a masterpiece.

Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Vietnamese Art