Even though both the painting’s creator and muse have left us behind, a part of their life will live on with us in an important relic of Vietnam’s 20th century history.
As Tuổi Trẻ reports, Nguyễn Minh Thúy — the subject of the iconic oil painting ‘Em Thúy’ — passed away on July 9 at her home in Thanh Xuân District, Hanoi. She was 89 years old.
‘Em Thúy’ is perhaps the best-known work by artist Trần Văn Cẩn, who’s widely considered one of the greatest Vietnamese painters of the modern age. The painting was officially bestowed the status of Vietnam’s National Treasure in 2013. The portrait has also been included in Vietnam’s public school syllabus for decades, further increasing its recognizability amongst Vietnamese.
Born in 1935, Nguyễn Minh Thúy was Trần Văn Cẩn’s niece. One day in 1943, seeing his niece dressed in her light pink silk outfit, he suggested she sit down for a portrait. Thúy was eight years old at the time, a student at École Brieux (now Thanh Quan Secondary School) on Hàng Cót Street, a primary school for girls. It took numerous one- and two-hour sessions over several months to finish; he gave it a simple name: ‘Em Thúy’ (Little Thúy).
‘Em Thúy’ was first introduced to the public at Foyer de l’Art Annamite (FARTA) in 1943. FARTA was an art association founded in 1937 by Trần Văn Cẩn with his contemporaries, including Tô Ngọc Vân, Georges Khanh, etc. Even though the family didn’t pay much attention to the painting at the time, it helped Cẩn clinch the first prize at l'Association pour la Formation Intellectuelle et Morale des Annamites (AFIMA), alongside his other painting, ‘Gội đầu’ (Hair-Washing). Cẩn was recognized for his masterful use of oil, which was still considered a novel medium back then; he also painted a lesser-known portrait of Thúy in 1959, when she was 24.
During wartime, Thúy’s family had to evacuate the capital and the painting was lost during in chaos. Fortunately, the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum managed to buy back ‘Em Thúy’ in 1964, albeit with considerable wear and tear. It underwent an intensive round of restoration in 2004 with the help of Australian conservator Caroline Fry, and has settled down at the museum since then.
As for Thúy, she went to school to become a teacher and mainly taught literature, the humanities and home economics during her tenure. She also got married and gave birth to three children.
Trần Văn Cẩn was born in 1910 in Hải Phòng, though he moved to Hanoi to live with his grandmother in 1924. Even though Cẩn graduated from a technical school, majoring in textile painting and carpentry, his passion for visual art pushed him to sign up for École des beaux-arts de l'Indochine (EBAI), the region’s most prestigious art school and the alma mater of many other Vietnamese art icons like Lê Phổ and Mai Trung Thứ. Cẩn passed away in 1994 at home in Hanoi.
[Top image via VnExpress]
