TRAN BINH LOC (1914-1941)

Lot 48
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Estimation :
150000 - 250000 EUR
Result without fees
Result : 220 000EUR
TRAN BINH LOC (1914-1941)
Portrait of an Elegant Woman, 1937 Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Original black lacquered frame. 65 x 50 cm - Private collection, France TRAN BINH LOC Tran Binh Loc was born in 1914 in the province of Ha Dong, a city near Hanoi. A laureate of the 1934 class of the Hanoi School of Fine Arts, he was one of those chosen by Victor Tardieu to represent Vietnamese painting at the first Salon de la France d'Outre-Mer at the Grand Palais in 1935. Contemporary of Pham Hau, master lacquerer, he was one of the most promising young artists of his time: Tran Van Can, Luu Van Sin, To Ngoc Van, Pham Hau, Vu Cao Dam, to name but a few... Shortly before his untimely death, he had been appointed professor at the School of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh. And, it is undoubtedly his death in 1941 at the age of 27 that explains why his name remains less known than that of artists like Le Pho, Mai Thu or Vu Cao Dam. The painting that we are presenting for sale bears witness to the very personal conception of Tran Binh Loc's painting, whose talent is illustrated as much in silk painting as in oil painting or in wood engraving. The young woman is represented in traditional dress (ao-dai) with the customary hairstyle of the North, in a reserved attitude full of delicacy. Her modest smile, the softness that emanates from the model, also correspond to the Vietnamese pictorial canons. However, the choice of technique and support: oil on canvas, as well as the luminous chromatic palette with whites nuanced with pinks and blues, give this painting a modern character breaking with the traditional Vietnamese pictorial codes. This painting, owned by the same collector for more than twenty years, is signed by the artist and dated 1937, four years before his death. A work of larger dimensions and dated the same year was recently presented at auction. Given the undeniable similarities between the two works, two hypotheses can be considered. The painting that we are presenting for sale could have been a preparatory study allowing the artist to reflect on the position of his model as well as on the chromatic palette that he wished to work with. It is also possible that the artist, having sold the painting in the same year as it was completed, wished to keep a study of it. It is known that the young woman depicted was familiar to him since, a few years later, he represented her again in an engraving.
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