Jean François Hubert, a French senior expert of leading auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's, ranks Vietnam’s paintings from the 1930s-1980s above those of other Asian countries. He also has a high opinion of the country’s art today.

Hubert, a leading authority on Vietnamese art at two world-famous auction houses, shared that he loves  Vietnamese paintings mostly for their simplicity.

The country’s art was at its prime from 1930 to 1980 and boasted several revered artists, including Le Pho, Nguyen Phan Chanh, Nguyen Gia Tri, and To Ngoc Van, whose works are greatly admired and widely collected in Western countries.

Hubert ranked the country’s achievements of the period over other Asian countries, including China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines.

“The Dong Duong art school alone from 1925 to 1945 boasted some 10 brilliant teachers and 20 outstanding students who later became well known . Few art schools in the world can achieve this in such a short period of time,” he noted.

Regarding complaints that a number of local artists don’t pay due attention to painting techniques, resulting in a shorter shelf life for their paintings, Hubert said that most veteran artists don’t have this problem, as most of their paintings have survived dozens of years.

He noted that he has never heard such complaints about Vietnamese paintings from foreign collectors, noting that information on the Internet can be unreliable.

However, Hubert referred to the self-repetition tendency quite common among Vietnamese artists, including reputable ones.

“Even artists such as Le Pho, Nguyen Phan Chanh, Nguyen Sang, and Vu Cao Dam repeated themselves up to 10 times in regards to themes and subjects, which usually baffles Western collectors. The artists usually didn’t think that their paintings would become well known, so they didn’t hesitate to copy their own paintings,” Hubert clarified.

Artists from other Asian countries tend to do the same. Like their Vietnamese colleagues, they also preferred to stay anonymous and didn’t begin to sign their work until recently.

These habits cause constant headaches for art collectors, curators, and buyers, particularly Western ones, who are concerned that they may be looking at fakes, confused by paintings that, despite looking alike, are all originals.

He also pointed out some shortcomings of local galleries, including a lack of experts to accurately assess and price artwork.

The French expert added that local artists don’t spend enough time promoting their work when preparing to launch a new exhibit. They also tend to retreat into their own art community rather than interacting with the public to learn more of buyers’ trends and tastes.