Dao Trong Ly, a Vietnamese national living in Thailand, has painted more than 100 portraits of late President Ho Chi Minh over the past decade as a showcase of love and respect for Vietnam’s national hero.

Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), affectionately called Uncle Ho by generations of Vietnamese, was the founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Ly’s fifty-five oil and watercolor paintings of Uncle Ho will be introduced to the public at an exhibition which opens on Friday at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi.

The museum has coordinated with the Association of Thai People of Vietnamese Origin in Nakhon Phanom Province, Thailand to organize the exhibition as a commemorative event for the 134th birthday anniversary of late President Ho Chi Minh.

Ly was born in 1951 to a patriotic overseas Vietnamese family in Nakhon Phanom.

He used to work as the chairman of the Association of Thai People of Vietnamese Origin in Nakhon Phanom.

He now serves as head of the advisory council for the general association of Vietnamese in Thailand.

Ly has been a passionate painter since he was young, though he chose to be a Vietnamese language teacher rather than an artist.

The artist and many other Vietnamese people in Thailand shared a love for the Vietnamese national hero since they were young.

In Ly’s eyes, late President Ho Chi Minh was not only a preeminent hero and politician but also a simple man with a great love for the people.

To show his love, Ly began painting portraits of Uncle Ho in 2018 when he started managing a memorial to Uncle Ho in Nakhon Phanom.

Ly’s paintings are a symbolic diary of Uncle Ho’s life.

He hopes his paintings will help nurture the love of Uncle Ho among both Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese alike.

The artist said he would donate his artworks to the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum following the exhibition.

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