Lê Thị Lựu

Vietnamese painter (1911–1988)

Ngô Thế Tân

(m. 1934⁠–⁠1988)

Children1

Lê Thị Lựu (黎氏榴, 19 January 1911 – 6 June 1988) was a Vietnamese woman painter. She was one of the first women and rare notable female alumni of Victor Tardieu's École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi, becoming the school's first female painter at the age of 16.^[1] With Mai Trung Thứ, Lê Phổ and Vũ Cao Đàm she was one of four Vietnamese artists in the 1930s to emigrate to and make a career in Paris.^[2] She used to be a teacher at Bưởi school, where her students included Phan Kế An, who also became a famous painter.^[3] During her time in France, she became a prolific art teacher before retiring in 1971.^[1]

Early Life

Lê Thi Lu'u was born on January 19, 1911 in Tho Khoi in Ha Bac, North Vietnam (modern day Hanoi). Her father, Le Van Que, was a civil servant with a french education that gave him access to social circles that included future editor-in-chiefs and future senators.^[4]

While Lu'u's two elder sisters enrolled in a teaching college, she instead opted for the Hanoi Fine Arts Academy in 1926. While in the Academy, she was learning to draw nudes, all of whom were prison mates as they were the only people willing to pose nude at the time. Being one of the only female students in a class full of males meant she was often ostracised and the male students would even go to the extent of desecrating her works out of jealously and prejudice.^[5]

She later became a professor at prestigious schools such as Buoi School, Hang Bai School (Hanoi), Gia Dinh Fine Arts School, Saigon.

Works

Lu'u's works were heavily inspired by the Classicism and Impressionism movements, which is evident in her works which are full of life and colour. She often uses oil and silk as her medium while also experimenting with gouache and ink, giving her works a soft and melancholic feeling.

Womanhood in Art

The subjects in her work consists of mainly women and children.

Some examples of her work:

Girl with her bouquet, Ink and gouache on silk, undated
Woman and children, Ink and gouache on silk, circa 1960s
La Confidence (Women Confiding), Ink and gouache on silk, 1938
La Course à Quatre Pattes (Race on Hands and Knees), gouache on silk laid on paper, 1970
Mère et enfant, Gouache on silk mounted on paper, 1968

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References

^ ^a ^b Hieu Nhan. "French-Vietnamese painter's work fetches $570,000 at art auction - VnExpress International". VnExpress. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
^ Arts of Asia: Volume 39 "Mai Thu... Le Pho's other close friend, Vu Cao Dam, had already decided to live in France, and when the three men were later joined by their fellow Ecole des Beaux-Arts the woman artist Le Thi Luu (Class III, 1927 1932), these four..."
^ Lý Trực Dũng (2010). Biếm họa Việt Nam. Hanoi: NXB Mỹ Thuật. p. 46.
^ Noppe Hubert, Catherine Jean-Francois H (November 11, 2018). Art of Vietnam (1st ed.). New York, USA: Parkstone Press (published 2018). p. 206. ISBN 978-1859958605.
^ "Le Thi Luu – The First Woman of Vietnam's Modern Art - Nguyen Art Gallery". 2023-05-17. Retrieved 2024-09-02.