MAI-THU

Born on November 10, 1906 in the village of Rho-Nha in the province of Kien-An in North Viet Nam, Trung Mai-Thu joined the first class of the Hanoi School of Fine Arts in 1925 and became a student of Joseph Inguimberty until 1930. 
He then worked as a drawing teacher at the French High School in Hué and was featured at the 1937 International Exhibition of Decorative Arts. 
Passionate about music, he also made a name for himself in France as a player of the doc-huyen, a traditional Vietnamese monochord, and then participated in the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne between 1938 and 1940. 
He always devoted a large part of his time to his plastic production and exhibited alongside his friend Le Pho at the Romanet Gallery in Algiers in 1942 at the invitation of the governor. 

He then settled permanently in Paris in 1943 where he developed multidisciplinary skills. Filmmaker, actor, painter, musician, Mai-Thu built a work of infinite richness. Mai-Thu exhibited his work in particular at the Galerie Pro Arte, the Galerie du Péristyle, the Galerie Cardo Matignon, the Galerie Vendôme, and at the Galerie Doucet. Deeply attached to traditional Asian art and its iconography, Mai-Thu displays a perfect mastery of painting on silk in rigorous compositions, imbued with a great gentleness. His singularity: he very often realizes the frames of his works.