VietNamNet Bridge - Born in 1934 in Hanoi, Ngo Manh Lan came to the fine art since he was a young man. At the age of 16, he joined the first course of the Vietnam Fine Arts College in Viet Bac forest (in northern Vietnam).

Having graduated from the college, he joined the army, taking part in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign and painting a great variety of sketches of the war. From 1956 to 1962, he studied in the former Soviet Union and after that he worked for the Vietnam Cartoons Film Studio.

For the past 56 years, Ngo Manh Lan has made a great contribution to painting and lecturing the subjects on cartoons and applied graphics. As one of the artists who laid a groundwork for the Vietnamese cartoon fine art, he joined efforts to make many cartoons that were presented with national and international prizes. In 1997, he was honoured with the People’s Artist title by the State of Vietnam.

With a wish to review and dialogue with himself and his colleagues, Ngo Manh Lan’s second individual exhibition this time is viewed as a “general mobilisation” of his selected works with various genres.

In the sketch genre, his direct, fresh and lively emotion about the war can be felt through works he painted during the war. These works include “Soldiers,” “Paramilitary Women,” “Dien Bien Phu Battlefield,”, “Preparation for fighting on A1 Hill,” and “Soldier and People in Nam Dinh Embank Dikes against Flood.”

It can be said that reality in combination with romance is an attractive style for the art works by Ngo Manh Lan. His oil paintings such as the “taking over Day,” “Dien Bien Soldiers,” “Suburban Paramilitary Woman Soldiers,” “Russian Old Lady,” and “Yellow Afternoon” bear time mark with multi-dimension space.

At the exhibition, viewers have a chance to see posters and sketches of cartoons that have been awarded with high prizes and loved by a large number of Vietnamese children, for example, Saint Giong and Kitten cartoons.

In 1971, late Party General Secretary Truong Chinh called at and admired the individual exhibition of Ngo Manh Lan. “Ngo Manh Lan’s art reflects an optimistic and witty view,” said late artist Tran Van Can.

(Source: Nhan Dan)