PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF A VERY DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN
Girl Holding Lotus Flower
signed and dated 1991 (lower right)
oil on canvas
39" x 39" (99 cm x 99 cm)


PROVENANCE: Sothebys, Southeast Asian Paintings, Singapore, 12 October 2003, Lot 114.



WRITE UP:
Apillar of Vietnamese modern art, Nguyen Trung is widely acclaimed for his figurative realist expressionist paintings. He was born when Vietnam was still under the hegemony of the French Empire under its collective colony known as French Indochina, which consisted of the modern-day nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and parts of China. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the country’s subsequent unification and embrace of Socialism, reconstruction, remodification, and realignment of values, especially in the cultural and collective sense, took place. Artists conformed to the revolutionary aesthetics of promoting socialist values by producing works of art that mirrored the masses’ struggles, sentiments, yearnings, and successes in achieving their liberation: first, from colonialism and, eventually, from imperialism. Nguyen Trung, who was born and raised in the province of Soc Trang, South Vietnam (the stronghold of the Frenchbacked State of Vietnam and then the US-backed Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) during the Cold War), remained adamant about his artistic maxim of creative individuality, even in the subsequent reunification of Vietnam in 1975 and the triumph of Socialism in the country. Nguyen chose the more determining path of figurative realist expressionism. He preferred to exalt in his canvas a kind of visual poetry basking in sublime lyricism and ethereal tranquility. He strived to promote Vietnamese traditional values. Vietnamese women became such endearing muses for Nguyen’s own creative emancipation. During the early 1990s, Nguyen shifted back and forth from figuration and abstraction, making him a pioneer of Vietnamese abstract art. But what remains coveted and acclaimed in his outstanding oeuvre is his depiction of Vietnamese women, which he started exploring in the early 1960s and whose graceful femininity is complemented by the delicate forms of the lotus flower, Vietnam’s national flower. A highly meditative piece, this 1991 work depicts a woman dressed in her ethereal áo dài. This traditional Vietnamese dress gained a resurgence by the 1990s; it became a standard everyday attire for many students, office workers, and virtually every Vietnamese woman, whether engaging in casual routines or attending formal events. The woman can be seen delicately holding a lotus flower with its petals closed. The composition is bathed in a dreamy haze dominated by pastel-like light blues as if suggesting a metaphysical dominion. In Vietnam, the lotus flower, particularly the white lotus, symbolizes purity of mind and spirit. A flower sacred to the country’s three dominant religions (Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism), the lotus remains as a metaphor for strength and resilience, for the Vietnamese see the seemingly inviolable purity of the lotus flower amid it being naturally situated in muddy waters. Furthermore, the closing of its petals at night and its invigorating blooming at the onset of dawn evoke a sense of optimism and confidence in whatever the future may hold. Nguyen then uses this unique attribute of the lotus flower as an all-encompassing symbol of integrity and the capability to rise much stronger above every adversity. As the sacred lotus flower is seen as rising above the limits of space and time, perennially blooming on each occasion, Nguyen expressively espouses the importance every new dawn brings: a renewed chance at living, being, and breathing, a revitalized hope for the gift of a dynamic and transformative enlightenment. Nguyen Trung is one of Vietnam’s national pride; he has represented his country in numerous international exhibitions over the course of his prolific six-decade career, including Paris (1990), Singapore (1992-95), Japan (1996), South Korea (1997, 2000), Italy, France, and the US (1998), Taiwan (1999), Thailand (2001), and the UK (2012). Nguyen’s works are in the venerable collections of the Vietnam Fine Art Museum, Ho Chi Minh City Fine Art Museum, Italy’s Museo Biblioteca Archivio di Bassano del Grappa, and Singapore’s National Gallery and United Overseas Bank. (Adrian Maranan)