Bùi Xuân Phái, the painter of the streets of Hanoi
- Cabinet Gauchet Art Asiatique
- Apr 8
- 4 min read
There are artists who, without ever seeking fame, end up embodying the soul of a place, a people or an era. Such is the case of Bùi Xuân Phái, a Vietnamese painter born in Hanoi in 1920, whose canvases have over time become veritable visual icons of the Vietnamese capital. Through his work, a whole urban and emotional memory unfolds, in a tone that is at once intimate, silent and poignant.
Bùi Xuân Phái belongs to this pivotal generation of artists trained at the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, an institution founded in 1925 by the French painter Victor Tardieu and the Vietnamese sculptor Nguyễn Nam Sơn. The school aimed to modernise artistic training while encouraging a synthesis between Asian plastic traditions and the codes of Western art. Phái studied there in the 1940s, alongside major figures such as Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm, Dương Bích Liên and Nguyễn Sáng. These four artists would later form what is commonly known as the ‘tứ trụ’ (the four pillars) of modern Vietnamese painting.
But while Phái shared the same academic training as his contemporaries, he distinguished himself from them very early on through his choice of subjects, his sensitivity and his constant loyalty to his native city. While others explored abstraction or the revolutionary themes in vogue in post-war Vietnam, he chose to paint the backstreets of Hanoi, its old houses, its popular markets, its silhouettes of anonymous passers-by. In this way, canvas after canvas, he paints the changing portrait of a Hanoi that modernisation threatens to erase.
This Hanoi, which Phái captures in its grey light, decrepit walls and reddish-brown tiled roofs, quickly became his trademark. The term ‘Phố Phái’ - literally, the ‘streets of Phái’ - is used to describe these urban paintings in which the drawing is vivid, sometimes trembling, and the composition deliberately unbalanced. The style is expressionist, the lines thick, the colours muted, with a predilection for browns, muted blues, stone greys and pale yellows. Phái's depiction is not of an embellished or idealised city, but of a living, ageing, breathing city whose facades seem to bear the scars of history.
This deeply subjective aesthetic bias went hand in hand with an independence of spirit that would cost him dearly. At the time, the cultural authorities were imposing a socialist realist art centred on the glorification of the people, the army and the revolution. Bùi Xuân Phái's poetic, melancholic and apolitical universe went against the grain. In 1957, he was expelled from the Association of Visual Artists of Vietnam for supporting the ‘Theatre Reform’, an intellectual movement considered subversive at the time. For several years, he was forced to paint at home, in the shadows, living in modest conditions, selling little, sometimes exchanging his paintings for medicines or books.
This did not stop him from continuing to work with unfailing determination. As well as his street views, Phái also took an interest in theatre, painting portraits of actors, rehearsal scenes and masks in an equally personal vein. He also painted portraits - often of friends, intellectuals or himself - marked by great interiority. His work as a whole bears witness to his attachment to the human, to everyday life, to the discreet beauty of simple things.
It was not until the end of his life, in the 1980s, that he began to receive official recognition. In 1984, he was posthumously awarded the State Prize for Literature and the Arts. Since then, his name has gone down in the pantheon of modern Vietnamese art. His studio house on Thuốc Bắc Street in Hanoi has been turned into a museum, and his works are now highly sought-after on the art market, both in Vietnam and abroad.
But beyond their historical or commercial value, Bùi Xuân Phái's paintings continue to have a profound effect on those who look at them. They speak to each of us of an attachment to the city, to memory, to childhood perhaps. They evoke that familiar yet difficult-to-name feeling that comes from the fragile beauty of a place in the process of disappearing. In this, Phái's work is not just Vietnamese: it is universal.
This is also why it is attracting renewed interest from collectors and lovers of Asian art. Bùi Xuân Phái's authentic works are unmistakable and are now the focus of special attention, both artistically and in terms of heritage.
As such, Gauchet Art Asiatique offers its expertise to assist collectors, heirs or enthusiasts wishing to authenticate, appraise or sell a work by Bùi Xuân Phái. Thanks to our in-depth knowledge of the Vietnamese art market and the particularities of his work - in particular the multiple techniques he used (oil, ink, gouache, newsprint, etc.) - our firm is able to offer a rigorous, documented and confidential appraisal. Whether you wish to have a work appraised, prepare a sale, or obtain a certificate of authenticity, our team will assist you with seriousness and discretion.
For further information or to request an appraisal, please do not hesitate to contact us.
References :
Bùi Xuân Phái, Witness Collection, [en ligne], https://witnesscollection.com/project/bui-xuan-phai/
Le vieux Hanoi Têt à travers les peintures de Bui Xuan Phai, Nguyen Tu Nghiem..., Báo Tuổi Trẻ, vietnam.nv, [en ligne], https://www.vietnam.vn/fr/tet-ha-noi-xua-qua-tranh-bui-xuan-phai-nguyen-tu-nghiem
Le Prix Bùi Xuân Phai, un label culturel de Hanoï, Quê Anh/CVN, Le courrier du Vietnam, [en ligne], https://lecourrier.vn/le-prix-bui-xuan-phai-un-label-culturel-de-hanoi/1076037.html
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