Painter Le Minh, real name is Le Ngoc Minh, was born in 1937, graduated from Gia Dinh Practical Fine Arts School in 1957, and began to design the first book cover ‘The Voice of Sao Len stream’, tales of the forest roads by Nguyen Ngoc Man, a pen of forest roads in the early 1960s.
Portrait of painter Le Minh (born 1937). Photo taken in June 2017
After that, he made illustrations for the series of stories ‘God of Hoa Lu cave’ published in Our People daily by Nguyen Vy. This was a feuilleton, one issue a day with illustrations. From here, he started drawing comics, taking the plots of historical stories or old stories such as ‘The girl of nam Xuong’, stories in the book ‘Truyen Ky Man Luc’… and comic series (5 newspaper columns for each episode) based on the plot of Bo Tung Linh.
Comic illustration by painter Le Minh
At first, he drew comics quite hard, drawing with Chinese ink and bamboo leaf iron pen. The plate at that time was still made on wood, engraved in every detail, it was really a feat. After, typo printing technique became popular, a piece of plate was placed on a small 65×50 printer, a pedal machine. Back then, four-color newspaper covers were printed in typographic plate with yellow – red – blue and black. Cliché Dầu workshop had to make four plates for four colors. This technique made it difficult for the painter and for the printer. The “old” or “young” plates would not fit. The painter must align the colors, know the printing technique to visualize his picture consisting of four colors printed on top of each other to paint each pure color, without using “blush” colors that were difficult to separate.
Painter Le Minh started drawing for New Saigon newspaper around 1958, one year after graduating from school, he worked as a regular painter at the request of the Editorial Secretary. The monthly salary of a regular painter at that time was 4,000đ, quite high while the salary of army officers of the rank of second lieutenant was less than 3,000. Ms. But Tra had children who work for other newspapers such as Women’s Forum, Women of Tomorrow, all of which asked him to draw illustrations, caricatures, and comics. He remembered that there was a lot of work at that time, the French Calson drawing paper bought one time for the whole roll, not retail, had to bring it home to ask his wife to filter it out into sheets.
His income was up to 6 thousand dong a month, not to mention the “súp” (extra) money paid by the manager when doing extra work outside the contract. With that salary, he lived comfortably, after a few years was able to buy a car.
Illustration by painter Le Minh in Women of Tomorrow newspaper
Illustration by painter Le Minh in the Women’s Forum newspaper
At the New Saigon newspaper editorial office at that time, besides Le Minh, who was a permanent artist, there was also artist Hoang Luong who worked as a collaborator, often coming to hand over the work and then leaving, in charge of drawing the comic ‘Blood hand’ of bestseller Phi Long. In the work at the editorial office of Le Minh, the important thing was to draw a cartoon on the front page every day. Once, he worked all night, was so tired that he fell asleep, waving his hand, causing a pot of Chinese ink to spill on the picture. In the morning, there was no picture to be sent to make plate, the Editorial Secretary, Mr. Chi Lang, had to immediately compile a “car-crash dog” news to fill it up. Fortunately, Cliché Dầu workshop knew that the plate needed urgently of New Saigon, so immediately did it in time to print the newspaper at noon.
Painter Le Minh (right) on Catinat Street (present-day Dong Khoi) in the late 1950s; Documentary Le Minh
Le Minh worked in New Saigon until the newspaper was shut down in 1963, after the Ngo Dinh Diem government collapsed and the newspaper was alleged to be close to the Ngo family. Brothers in the newspaper scattered everywhere, went to the newspapers of Speech, Independent. Then there was the stage of drawing book cover, the most memorable was the drawing for the cover of the story by Kim Dzung, creating his very own mark.
Written by researcher Pham Cong Luan
From the book ‘Saigon taste of spring newspaper the old time’ – Phuong Nam book company published in 2018
Courtesy of author Pham Cong Luan, posted on Viet Art View’s media platforms
