Nguyen Trung was born in in 1940, in Soc Trang in the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam. Although he never completed his studies at the Saigon College of Fine Arts, he was a critical contributor to the lively developments of the Saigonese art scene in the 1960s. In the cosmopolitan environment of pre-1975 Saigon, Trung became a leading member of the Saigon Young Artist’s Association, a new art society which embraced modernism and rejected political art. Their manifesto (which Nguyen Trung partly wrote) promised to “follow modern art movements closest to the tendencies that reside in the hearts of our Vietnamese audience.” This work is a strong example of the stylistic direction of Saigonese art in this period. The subject is a tea vendor in one of the cafes in Saigon, shown seated, holding a dish cloth, before her cups and kettle. The muted, smoky colour was evokes the hazy atmosphere of those cafes, which were filled with the steam of the boiling tea kettle. The work is painted with a blue-black ground, with areas of iridescent blue, green and white, a characteristic colour palette for Nguyen Trung's work in this period. characteristic of his works of the period. The abbreviated forms and rough handling of paint suggest the influence of School of Paris painters, like George Roualt and Amedeo Modigliani. Showing the wartime context, the painting is made on the back of a US Aid rice sack, possibly an indication of the difficulties of obtaining canvas in this period.
