Mixed media and silk mounted on board

60.5 x 37.5 cm. 23 7/8 x 14 3/4 in.

Signed in Chinese and English on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Vietnam
Shenn's Fine Art Gallery, Singapore
Important Private Collection, Singapore

Parisian Techniques and Oriental Dreamscapes
Le Pho: A Master of 20th Century Vietnamese Art
Le Pho was born in Ha Dong in northern Vietnam in 1907. His father was the governor of the French protectorate Tonkin, also known as Bac Ky. In his early years, Le Pho entered the École des Beaux-Arts de I'Indochine. In 1930, relying on scholarships, the rising 23-year-old artist arrived in Paris — the art center of the world, to which Le Pho aspired — and entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris to further his studies. He finally gained international prestige for his works integrating Eastern and Western artistic language. As the critic Jerzy Waldemar Jarocinski, better known as Waldemar-George, remarked, “The work of Le Pho is not a compromise between Vietnamese art, of Chinese origin, and Western art. It is a fusion of two mentalities, two worlds, and two continents.” Le Pho's works are filled with an elegant, hazy charm； they simultaneously possess the calmness of European classical portraits and the gentle beauty of traditional Oriental paintings. This not only made Le Pho one of the most respected painters in Vietnam, but has also made his works highly sought-after in the international art world.
The work presently being auctioned, Ladies in the Garden, was created around 1956. The artist uses silk fabric as his medium, which increases the difficulty of applying paint. Compared with Le Pho's other cloth-based works, Ladies in the Garden better embodies the artist's exquisite techniques. The work depicts two women enjoying flowers in a garden. One of the ladies appears in the foreground； her graceful Oriental countenance and elegant posture reveal the Buddhist qualities of benevolence and harmony. The other lady is portrayed in the rear of the garden and appears nude, endowing the work with an innocence and joy reminiscent of the biblical Garden of Eden. The work's meticulous compositional layout gives it a hint of the divine sense of ritual reflected in the Renaissance-period works themed around “Madonna of the Rose Garden”. At the same time, Le Pho uses natural outdoor light （a technique known as “pleinairism”, which originated during the Impressionist period） to strengthen the composition's sense of realism. Meanwhile, the work's pure colors and dreamy atmosphere evoke a Parisian-style romanticism, endowing the painting's subjects with souls that are as beautiful as fresh flowers.

Price estimate:
HKD: 200,000 - 300,000
USD: 25,500 - 38,200

Auction Result:
HKD : --