Artist Lương Xuân Nhị (1914-2006)
Artist Lương Xuân Nhị won the State Prize for Literature and Arts in 2001. He was born in Hà NộiHaà NHaàH H, originally from Mỹ Hào district, Hưng Yên province.
From 1932 to 1937, he studied at Indochina Fine Arts College, class 8 (passed first in both the entrance exam and the graduation exam). As early as 1935, he participated in SADEAI exhibitions (1936 Salon gold medal, 1937 Salon premier prize). All of his silk paintings created in 1937 were selected to participate in the Paris exhibition that same year.
From 1938 to 1944, after graduating, he lived as a free lance by painting and photography, and also worked as an amateur “ciné” actor.
As a former member of the SADEAI Examiners Council, he continued to participate in SADEAI, Salon Unique and FARTA exhibitions. He was a founding member of FARTA. In 1943, he and two artists Nam Sơn and Nguyễn Văn Tỵ made a cultural and creative exchange trip to Japan.
1945-1946, the August Revolution was successful, he held the position of Provisional Chairman of Cửa Nam town (Hà Nội) for a while and then taught at Việt Nam Fine Arts School.
1947-1948, artist Lương Xuân Nhị was President of the Resistance Cultural Association of Hưng Yên province, participated in opening short-term painting training classes, painted a lot of propaganda paintings for the Military Political Department of the Inter-Region 3, contributing actively to disintegrate the enemy army.
From 1949 to 1951, he was General Secretary of Inter-Region 3 Arts Association.
Since peace was restored (1954), he taught at Việt Nam Fine Arts College and continued to paint enemy propaganda paintings to serve the resistance war against the US (1965-1972).
Artist Lương Xuân Nhị has the academic title of associate professor, title “People’s Teacher”; Member of the Central Committee of Việt Nam Fatherland Front (1955- 1977); Vice President of Hà Nội Arts Association (1966-1976); Founding member of Việt Nam Fine Arts Association; Member of the Executive Committee of Việt Nam Fine Arts Association, term I (1957-1983) and term II (1983-1989).
“… Lương Xuân Nhị is a painter famous for the smoothest and most polished art of his time. His oil paintings show the slender, graceful figures of middle-class women in Hà Nội, with light and smooth ‘pâte’ with formal strokes. In addition, he also painted poetic landscapes (or still lifes) – with the elegant style and talented eye of an urban intellectual. He belongs to the type of painter that the French often call ‘peintre char-mant’, a painter with interesting beauty, radiating fragrance” (Quang Phòng, “Modern Vietnamese Art”, Fine Arts Publishing House, 1996).
In silk painting, in addition to the image of Hà Nội young women and landscapes, he also focused on daily life themes: Roadside stall (1937), Fishing family (1939), Summer (1941) “with a spacious expression of large areas, light shadows on simplified shapes.”
He is one of the artists who has found bright color combinations, especially notable in the color green (typically through two oil paintings: “Palm Hill”, 1955 (Việt Nam Fine Arts Museum) and “By the well”, 1956 (Việt Nam Fine Arts Museum).
Specializing in two materials: oil and silk – in fact, to him, they must be like a pair of complementary mediums – his art has achieved a harmony between the calmness of Western science and Vietnamese – Asian psychology of perception, through a series of master works, “retains its identity – as he said – because it is not influenced by foreign art.”
He is also the author of the book “Anatomy for visual art” (Culture Publishing House, 1978).
Article by Researcher Quang Việt (Vietnamese Artists Dictionary, Fine Arts Publishing House 2008)
Lương Xuân Nhị, “Young women of Capital going for resistance war”, circa 1948, silk
A&V Collection, Hà Nội
Lương Xuân Nhị, “Relaxing”, circa 1936, silk
Lương Xuân Nhị, “The fishing family”, circa 1940, silk
Lương Xuân Nhị, “Lanscape of Indochina”, circa 1935, oil
Lương Xuân Nhị, “By the well”, 1984, oil
Collection of Việt Nam Fine Arts Museum
