Mai Trung Thứ (1906-1980), Vietnam. Ink and gouache on silk. Signed. "La toilette".

In the late 1920s some students of the Fine Arts School of Hanoi developed painting on silk under the patronage of their director Victor Tardieu (1870-1937). Amongst them, Nguyen Phan Chanh (1892-1984), Tran Binh Loc (1914-1941), Tô Ngoc Van (1906-1954), Vu Cao Dam (1908-2000) and some others were primarily using this medium. At that time however, Le Pho (1907-2001) and Mai Thu (1906-1980) still favoured working with oil on canvas.

Painting on silk could lead to a misunderstanding of the exact medium. In fact, it would be more appropriate to talk about 'painting on silk applied on paperboard'. It is Le Pho himself who explained personally to me in 1991 about his technique which required a certain amount of preparation: take a paperboard, cut a piece of silk to the dimension on which you trace two lines of glue, the first one horizontal and the second one vertical, you cover with the glue every centimetre to the edge and leave the preparation to dry a whole night. Once dried, the preparation creates a fusion between the silk, the paperboard and the glue and provides an original surface to work on. Afterwards, the painter will apply delicately the gouache and the black ink.