Despite having lived in France for the majority of his life, Mai Thu retained a strong sense of patriotism and devotion to the mores from his homeland, finding delight in incorporating Vietnamese subject matter to his art. This artist embodies a generation of progressive Vietnamese artists that emerged during the 1930s, including Le Pho and Vu Cao Dam. Seven years after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine in Hanoi, Mai Thu moved to Paris where he began merging the French Salon style with Vietnamese aesthetic traditions.

Also a film-maker and photographer, Mai Thu exposes his penchant for these fields of art in his ambrosial yet theatrical work. Though he seemingly depicts a si...