Vu Cao Dam Biography
Vu Cao Dam was born in 1908 in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
He began his artistic training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Hanoi and, at the age of twenty-three, obtained a scholarship that allowed him to study and travel in France. In 1932 he moved to Paris, after obtaining a scholarship to study sculpture, but later decided to devote himself to painting. In 1949, during a trip to the south of France, where he became a neighbor of Marc Chagall, who exerted a strong impact on his artistic work.
The artist was strongly influenced by the French Impressionists, especially Matisse and Bonnard. His artistic production is divided into two distinct phases. The first phase corresponds to silk painting, which harks back to the ancient Chinese painting tradition. Later, he turned to oil painting, which was influenced by the works of his contemporaries in France.
He believed in the possibility of a synthesis between the two art forms and his paintings clearly demonstrate this. His talent was concentrated on figure painting, with rare exceptions of landscapes. The subjects of his paintings were women, girls, folklore and poetry from Vietnam. The women depicted in her paintings embody the enduring beauty of femininity and motherhood. He remained in France all his life and died in Paris in 2000 at the age of 92.
