Nguyen Tu Nghiem

- 1919: Born in Nam Dan - Nghe An - 1946: Graduated from the Fine Arts College of Indochina in Hanoi (the 15th Course, 1940 - 1945) "For 40 years, Nguyen Tu Nghiem has drawn upon the arts of the village to shape a distinctive modern Vietnamese art. He sought inspiration in the country's traditional culture rather than in the art of the West. A trailblazer and model for many Northern artists, young and old, Nghiem's work vividly demonstrates the kinship between traditional Vietnamese culture and the spirit of Western modernism. His paintings of village dances & festivals, national myths & literature and zodiac figures have captured the immediacy, energy and innocent exuberance of those village arts."