Vu Cao Dam was born on January 8, 1908 in Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin. He grew up in a family that had been converted to Catholicism since the 18th century and his father, who spoke French admirably, was sent to Paris for the 1889 Universal Exhibition. His father founded and directed the Hanoi School of Interpreters which trained the mandarins of the colonial regime. It is thus within this privileged universe, where Chinese calligraphy permeates daily life, that Vu Cao Dam evolved.

In 1926, he joined the second class of the Hanoi School of Fine Arts, which was directed by the painter Victor Tardieu. There he rubbed shoulders with Mai Trung Thu, Nguyen Phan Chanh, Le Pho and learned western academic techniques th...