Bui Xuan Phai

For most of the 1960s and 1970s, Bùi Xuân Phái painted in private. He had been dismissed from his teaching post at the Hanoi College of Fine Arts in 1957[[1]]( , after lending public support to the Nhan Van affair, a short-lived campaign for artistic freedom in North Vietnam[[1]]( , and his work was barred from official exhibition until 1984. He painted the streets of Hanoi's Old Quarter anyway, on whatever material was to hand: canvas, wooden boards, newspaper. Born in Hanoi in 1920[[1]]( , Phai studied at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d'Indochine, where he encountered European modernism through the influence of Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall. The narrow lanes and crumbling French-colonial shophouses of the Old Quarter became his central subject, painted in muted ochres and greys with the flat, declarative outlines of someone more interested in memory than documentation. He also painted Vietnamese cheo and tuong theatre performers, capturing actors mid-makeup in small, intimate oils that work against the heroic grain of the period's official art. His 1972[[1]]( oil Hanoi Old Quarters has since become one of the most reproduced paintings in Vietnamese art history. The affection Hanoi residents felt for his street scenes gave rise to the term pho Phai (Phai's streets), now in general use for any painting of the Old Quarter in his manner. Phai died in 1988[[1]]( , having seen his work officially rehabilitated only four years earlier. Vietnam[[1]]( 's Ho Chi Minh Prize in Literature and Art was awarded to him posthumously in 1996. Bùi Xuân Phái is known for his paintings of Hanoi's Old Quarter, which became his central subject. His street scenes were so beloved by Hanoi residents that they coined the term pho Phai (Phai's streets) to describe any painting of the Old Quarter in his style. His 1972[[1]]( oil Hanoi Old Quarters has become one of the most reproduced paintings in Vietnamese art history. Bùi Xuân Phái was a Vietnamese artist who was dismissed from his teaching post at the Hanoi College of Fine Arts in 1957[[1]]( . His work was barred from official exhibition until 1984, after he lent public support to a campaign for artistic freedom. Despite this, he continued to paint, often depicting the streets of Hanoi's Old Quarter. Bùi Xuân Phái's art style was influenced by European modernism, which he encountered at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d'Indochine. He painted in muted ochres and greys with flat, declarative outlines. His style is characterised as being more interested in memory than documentation. Editorial draws on the following primary and tertiary references for Bui Xuan Phai.