TÚ DUYÊN (1915 – 2012)

EARLY YEARS

Tu Duyen, whose real name is Nguyen Van Duyen, was born in 1915 in the Bac Ninh Province  .

He spent six months as a private student in the studio of Nam Sơn before enrolling in the preparatory course of the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in 1935. After the Japanese took control of northern Vietnam in 1940, Tú Duyên moved south to Saigon in 1942, where he started experimenting with woodblock carving, using his knowledge of Đông Hồ folk prints that he had seen created by village farmers in the north.

His family moved to Ho Chi Minh City in 1939, where he achieved success as the inventor and producer of hand-stamped silk paintings by 1943. By 1950, the art form was recognized nationwide and in 1955, his painting "Tran Binh Trong" won him first place in the Fine Arts Prize.

His products became well known both at home and abroad, in such countries as the Philippines, France, Japan, Malaysia, Belgium and many more.

BY 1975, the painter had sold two artworks to Rockefeller, one of the richest Americans in history, and 5 paintings of Angkor Wat to the Cambodian Embassy in Viet Nam.