Vietnam University of Fine Arts

Vietnam University of Fine Arts (formerly Hanoi College of Fine Arts) is an art school in Hanoi, Vietnam. It was established under the French rule in 1925.^[1] The university has trained many of Vietnam’s leading artists and each year it participates in many cultural exchanges with sister institutions overseas.

History

The long and distinguished history of the Hanoi University of Fine Art may be traced back to the colonial École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l’Indochine (1925-1945) (the Indochina College of Fine Arts) which trained successive generations of Vietnamese students — and a smaller number of students from Cambodia and Laos — in the western art tradition, laying the essential groundwork for the development of a distinctive Vietnamese style of modern art. The École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi was the predecessor of the Hanoi College of Fine Arts (vi:Trường Đại học Mỹ thuật Việt Nam).

The école was established by the French colonial government, along similar lines to the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts d’Alger, established 1843, and École des Beaux-Arts de Tunis, established 1923. The school was for all students who were then known to the French as Indochinese — including Tonkinese (Bắc Kỳ), Annamese (Trung Kỳ), Cochin Chinese (i.e., not ethnic Chinese but inhabitants of Nam Kỳ), Khmer, and Lao — although inevitably most students were drawn from Hanoi itself.^[2][3]

Though the co-founders are usually credited as the first director Victor Tardieu and the Vietnamese artist Nam Sơn.^{[4][nb 1]} Tardieu was succeeded by the sculptor Évariste Jonchère who was director from 1938 to 1945.^{[5][nb 2]}

French artists who were teachers at school and other art schools in the south of Vietnam include several winners of the Prix d'Indochine, since from 1925 winning the prize included a year teaching at the school. Teachers included Joseph Inguimberty,^[6] and Alix Aymé, wife of the deputy commander of the French forces.

Alumni

Students included Lê Phổ, Tô Ngọc Vân, Nguyễn Phan Chánh, the first to exhibit silk paintings in Paris in 1931, Nguyễn Gia Trí, known for his lacquer painting, the Roman Catholic painter Lê Văn Đệ, Nguyễn Tường Lân, the painter Lê Thị Lựu who emigrated to Paris, Nguyễn Sáng, Nguyễn Khang (painter), Huỳnh Văn Gấm, Dương Bích Liên and Tạ Tỵ.^[7]

After 1945

The college was taken over by the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam after the August Revolution of 1945. When the struggle against the French intensified in 1950, the college was moved to Đại Từ, Thai Nguyen in the Viet Bac Resistance Zone, under the direction of painter Tô Ngọc Vân.

In 1954 professors and students returned to Hanoi where, in 1957, a new Hanoi College of Fine Art was established under the direction of painter Tran Van Can.

In 1981 this institution became the Hanoi University of Fine Art. The university offers five-year Bachelor of Fine Art programmes and two-year full-time or three-year part-time Master of Arts programmes in Painting, Graphic Art and Sculpture, and four-year Bachelor of Fine Art Education programmes.^[8]

Bui Xuan Phai studied at the college between 1941 and 1946 and taught there for a number of years; he was sacked in 1957 for supporting the Nhân Văn affair, a movement for political and cultural freedom. The result was that he was not permitted to show his work in public until a solo exhibition in 1984.^[9]

On May 9, 2000, the Hanoi University of Fine Arts in coordination with other local art institutions sponsored a large reunion of former students of the college to celebrate the Ecole's 75th anniversary.

References

Coordinates: 21°01′20″N 105°50′34″E / 21.0221°N 105.8428°E / 21.0221; 105.8428