Tô Ngọc Vân, who also used the name "To Tu" (1908-1954), corresponded with the Spanish Cubist and exiled communist Pablo Picasso. In one of his most famous paintings Ha Noi's Standing Up (1946), completed shortly after the August Revolution and President Ho Chi Minh's official declaration of independence, he referenced the well-known song The People of Ha Noi by Nguyen Dinh Thi.
Girl with Lotus Flower by Tô Ngọc Vân
If you are a westerner reading this you may be forgiven for not being aware of this artist or his work. The art of the decolonising world is rarely a focus, if it is even mentioned at all, in western art history. Western art history books, of which I own several, will more commonly focus on the products of ancient cultures that have found there way into western museums and galleries. There is also a studied indifference to the art of cultures allied with official enemies of the west during the Cold War period. This is our loss.
The book Marxism and Vietnamese Culture by Truong Chinh, who was at that time the Minister of Culture, had a big influence on the development of a uniquely Vietnamese form of Socialist Realism in the years immediately after independence.
Ta Ty (1922-2004) experimented with more Modernist and Cubist forms, often bordering on caricature, during the years of the independence war against France. Working from some of the "resistance zones" in the north of the country was an experience that informed paintings like Longing for Ha Noi (1947).
Other artists who lived in the resistance zones were Bùi Xuân Phái (1920-1988) and Nguyen Tu Nghiem (b.1922), the former bringing a more Impressionist influence in contrast to Ta Ty's modernism. A major exhibition that took place in 1948 also saw the participation of Van Cao (1923-1995). A veritable Renaissance man of post-colonial Vietnamese culture, he would also become a noted composer.
Support from the Soviet Union was critical at this time, and extended to the cultural sphere following the French defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The mid-1950s saw a total of 91 Vietnamese students allowed to travel to the USSR to develop their craft, with Bui Xuan Phai even awarded the Leipzig Graphics Award from the government of the GDR, a country that also provided critical assistance in the rebuilding of heavily bombed cities like Vinh following the American War.
I hope this short overview will inspire people to research more deeply into a world so often ignored by mainstream western art history.