[1] The pamphlets describing the goals for l’Ecole des Beaux-arts d’Indochine used the phrase “to transform the indigenous craftsmen into professional artists” which reflects the colonial mind-set of civilizing and educating ‘the natives’ (Taylor, 2004: 36).

However, despite these rather condescending aims, Victor Tardieu, and his co-founder, Nam Son Nguyen Van Tho, and their colleague Joseph Imguimberty, in addition to introducing observation-based drawing classes, composition and oil painting, did not simply impose European art techniques, theories and media, they also included the study of oriental media such as woodblock printing, silk and lacquer painting in the curriculum, which demonstrates their interest in and openness to local culture and traditions.

It seems that despite the inevitable resentment of colonialism at that time, the individual people involved in establishing l’Ecole des Beaux-arts d’Indochine had a genuine interest in, and recognition of, the potential of Vietnamese art (especially painting), and a rapport with the students that helped to build an artistic community.

[1] Chanh was one of the early entrants to the newly opened French-established l’Ecole des Beaux-arts d’Indochine in 1925, 33 years of age, older than many of his classmates, and from a different and more rural geographical region.

[4] Chanh participated in both National resistance wars, was a keen patriot, and in the post-colonial era (after 1945) was praised for the fact that his artwork that illustrated Vietnamese village life and history in modest and simple terms, often interpreted as a continuation of native ‘folk’ art tradition, which in the newly established republic represented his resilience against foreign domination.

[6] In 2013, at Christie's Hong Kong, Chanh’s La Marchand de Riz (The Rice Seller), initially valued at just 50 pounds sterling ($75) sold for HK$3.03 million ($390,000) setting a record for a work by a Vietnamese artist.