Image size: 74.0 x 51.5 cm
Mai Trung Thứ is a well-known Vietnamese artist of the generation who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (EBAI): the art school established by the French colonial administration in Hanoi in 1925. Following the Exposition Coloniale of 1931, Vietnamese art was marketed actively in Paris, and many artists began to send work to the salon exhibitions there. Mai Trung Thứ was one of a small group of Vietnamese artists to emigrate to Paris in the late 1930s (including Lê Phổ and Vũ Cao Đàm): he settled there in 1937. In France, all three artists developed a soft, linear style of painting on silk, of which this work is a characteristic example. This work depicts a group of Vietnamese musicians, rendered with delicate line work against a graduated background of luminous, warm colour. The subject matter reflects the artist's lifetime interest in traditional Vietnamese music: Mai Trung Thứ himself also played both the flute and monochord. The work was very likely shown at a 1944 exhibition of Vietnamese migrant artists in Paris, held in a gallery run by the Economic Agency of the Colonies.
