Remembering Do Huu Hue, the painter of Uncle Ho visiting the elementary school class

Đỗ Hữu Huề - Ảnh 1. — Painter Do Huu Hue - Family photo

Three years after artist Do Huu Hue passed away due to COVID-19, his family organized the exhibition Do Huu Hue's Colors at the school where he taught and trained many generations of artists for 33 years. At the same time, they launched a book introducing the artist and his devoted teacher.

Do Huu Hue and his love for life

The exhibition includes hundreds of works and sketches, selected from a large number of family paintings, from watercolors and gouache paintings he drew when he was a student, to sketches in fierce bombed areas during the anti-destructive war period, urban and rural landscapes yesterday and today...

During his lifetime, the artist had a solo exhibition in 1996 and 20 years later had a joint exhibition with artist Nguyen Dinh Tranh, but it can be said that this exhibition introduces the most complete picture of the painting face of Do Huu Hue.

Nhớ Đỗ Hữu Huề, người vẽ Bác Hồ thăm lớp vỡ lòng - Ảnh 2. — Wife (right cover) of painter Do Huu Hue with son Do Xuan Hien (middle) and painter's daughter at the exhibition - Photo: T.DIEU

This is the exhibition that the artist planned to organize when he was alive, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the artist and his family's plans.

When viewing the exhibition, what impresses viewers is not the superb technique of a master painter, but the pure heart and love for life of an artist who has devoted his whole life to painting.

Paintings of countryside landscapes, harvest scenes in the old countryside, sketches of war-torn areas in the North, and a painting of artistic sentiments in the house at 108 Yet Kieu Street by musician Van Cao make viewers emotional when they see again the old scenes and feelings.

Especially the paintings of Uncle Ho surprise viewers with the artist's feelings for him.

Nhớ Đỗ Hữu Huề, người vẽ Bác Hồ thăm lớp vỡ lòng - Ảnh 3. — The work Uncle Ho visits the kindergarten class by Do Huu Hue - Photo: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

Uncle Ho is a lifelong creative inspiration

Ms. Dang Thi Bich Ngan, a former student of Do Huu Hue, who compiled a book about the teacher, said that painter Do Huu Hue devoted a lot of emotions to President Ho Chi Minh in his creative life.

In addition to the work Uncle Ho visits the kindergarten class in the collection of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, which is familiar to many art lovers, the artist also created many works about Uncle Ho such as: Youth in the footsteps of Uncle Ho , Uncle Huynh, Uncle Ho, Uncle Ho visits the Traffic School, Uncle Ho goes on a business trip in Viet Bac, Uncle Ho visits Sao Sang Kindergarten.

In which the painting Uncle Ho visiting Sao Sang Kindergarten was created recently, in 2015, showing that Do Huu Hue has nurtured the feeling of composing about Uncle Ho throughout his life.

In 1973, Youth followed in Uncle Ho's footsteps. won first prize at the National Propaganda Painting Exhibition in 1973, becoming a familiar image in social life at that time.

The painting "Uncle Ho on a business trip to Viet Bac" received the A prize in the popular painting category from the Culture Publishing House.

In particular, the oil painting Uncle Ho visiting the kindergarten class received the C prize in the 1976 National Fine Arts Exhibition, collected by the Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts...

About this painting, Mr. Do Xuan Hien, the youngest son of painter Do Huu Hue, shared special memories of the father and son.

At the end of 1975, Hien started going to elementary school. Every day, listening to Hien spell out the letters, artist Do Huu Hue was inspired to create a painting of Uncle Ho visiting the elementary school class.

When creating the work, he studied models, sketched and found characters. When drawing the character of a baby holding a ruler pointing at the board, he asked his youngest son to hold a feather duster pointing at the wall so he could sketch the figure.

But when the work was finished, it was a little girl holding a ruler pointing at the blackboard, making Hien angry with her father, forcing him to immediately sketch a portrait to "compensate" her.

The artist unexpectedly kept that portrait sketch very carefully, so when he passed away, Mr. Hien was moved to see himself again as a child while searching for his father's legacy.

Nhớ Đỗ Hữu Huề, người vẽ Bác Hồ thăm lớp vỡ lòng - Ảnh 7. — The work "Mr. Huynh, Mr. Ho" was composed by Do Huu Hue in 1990.

Born in 1935 in Bac Ninh in a wealthy family, in 1954 Do Huu Hue attended the To Ngoc Van course - the first course of the Vietnam College of Fine Arts (now the Vietnam University of Fine Arts).

After graduating in 1962, he was retained at the school to teach at intermediate, undergraduate and later graduate levels. In 1995, he was awarded the title of associate professor.

In parallel with his teaching work, Do Huu Hue painted many oil paintings, lacquer paintings, wood carvings, silk paintings, stamps, prints, propaganda paintings, etc.

While still a student, the woodcut Sending Grandchildren to Grandma (1956) by Do Huu Hue was selected to be printed in Vietnamese Paintings and Statues 1957 .

In addition to domestic awards, the wood carving Rice shaft in the agricultural cooperative warehouse yard was collected by the Oriental Museum (former Soviet Union).

In 1980, the Department Store engraving was selected to be printed as a postcard in the Soviet Union.