Beside the River: one of Phan Cam Thuong’s woodblock prints.

Ancient Dong Ho woodblock printing is enjoying a short-term revival this month, with the opening of an exhibition titled Traces and Traditions – Vietnamese Woodblock Prints at the International Print Center in New York.

It is the city’s first exhibition of woodblock prints from Viet Nam, a country known to many Americans only through war.

The exhibition features works by five Ha Noi artists in the Dong Ho printing technique, which is a style of ink printing on do (poonah) paper.

Though she had never visited Viet Nam, centre director Ann Coffins arranged to display the prints through a friend and secured sponsorship from the Ford Foundation.

The National Gallery in London has bought a print by one of the artists, Le Quoc Viet, who, at 31, is the youngest of the five.
He studied at the Ha Noi Fine Art College under another of the exhibiting artists, famous art critic Thuong, 47.


Thuong’s art uses an old Chinese printing style that involves Indian ink. He began dabbling with prints from carved woodblocks while living and working at the But Thap Pagoda in Bac Ninh Province, near the Dong Ho Village.

Viet joined his teacher at the pagoda, where he learn to make woodblock prints, to read and write Chinese characters and to carve calligraphy on woodblocks. He also studied Buddhism and folk legends.

The other artists in the exhibition are: Viet Nam Art Museum deputy director, Tran Nguyen Dan, 62 years old; Luu The Han, 43 and Nguyen Duc Hoa, 46. They all have studied Dong Ho, Hang Trong and a traditional painting style linked to religion and medicine that has existed in Viet Nam since the 11th century.

The exhibition explores the themes of Vietnamese history and Buddhism and elevates technique to an art of its own. The works are charged with details of Buddhist thinking and modern life.

To tie in with the exhibition, artists Phan Cam Thuong and Le Quoc Viet led a seminar introducing Vietnamese woodblock prints at the Linder Theatre of the American Museum of Natural History.

The woodblock show coincides with two other Vietnamese art exhibitions in New York this month: Viet Nam: Journey of Body, Minds and Spirit at the renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art displays ao dai and other artefacts supplied by the Viet Nam Museum of Ethnology, as well as Vietnamese ceramics and a picture of a Dong Son brass drum from the museum’s permanent collection.

An exhibition of Vietnamese folk painting, mostly portraying the Dao ethnic people, is also on at the Viet Nam Gallery on Moore Street.

Though only open for a short season, the three shows and seminar are certain to offer the American public a glimpse into the age-old cultures of Viet Nam. — VNS

Reprinted with permission from Vietnam News Agency

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