Queen Sonja of Norway presented an award-winning work about war by renowned Norwegian graphic artist Per Kleiva to the Museum of Fine Art in Hanoi yesterday.

Queen Sonja presents the triptych Diary of Imperialism displayed at the Museum of Fine Art in Hanoi.

The gift was part of King Harald V and Queen Sonja's five-day visit to Vietnam that began yesterday, November 1 and ends this Friday.

Per Kleiva's 1971 triptych is titled the Diary of Imperialism, with the three panels depicting dramatic contrasts: a flowering green landscape invaded by marching soldiers, then by helicopters, and followed by a return to a seemingly untouched landscape.

The artist used media images alongside characters, which are simultaneously intimate and depersonalised, to evoke the violence and oppression of the war in Vietnam.

These three silkscreens won Per Kleiva the Grand Prix at the 1972 Graphic Art Biennial in the Polish city of Cracow.

Born in 1933, Per Kleiva grew up in western Norway and studied at art academies in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Italy.

Working both figuratively and non-figuratively and taking pop art as his starting point, Per Kleiva evolved an imagery of social criticism.

Norway's royal couple will attend a seafood festival at the Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi today, organised by the Norwegian Embassy and the Norwegian Seafood Export Council.

(Source: Viet Nam News)