Vu Cao Dam (French, 1908-2000)

We see the Vietnam born Vu Cao Dam establishing his mature style while living in the south of France in the 1960s. Promenade au Bois or “Walk In The Woods,” painted in 1969 represents the culmination of this artistic maturity by exhibiting the artist’s known tropes: figures inhabiting a dreamlike setting, rendered in lush, inviting colors. Of note in this particular work, Vu Cao Dam’s recognizable mother and child are visited by horse and rider, each inhabiting a field of color that reflects their countenance. The infusion of Eastern subjects into a Chagall-ian dreamscape works naturally, as this otherworldly plane is the perfect setting to bring together disparate elements into a cohesive whole.