Bui Xuan Phai, Old Hanoi Street, c 1987 – 88, oil on canvas, 63 x 99 cm, collection of National Heritage Board

Ever since his solo exhibition in 1984, Phai had access to better painting materials. This is an unusually large canvas painting by the artist at a later part of his life. Executed in a painterly manner with the use of the palette knife, It is properly done of a street scene during the rainy season with grey skies.

The expressive pictorial language used in this painting recalls that of the French post-impresionist painters like Cezanne and Van Gogh but unlike the colour palettes of brillaint yellows, reds and blues often associated with them, Phai was drawn towards earthly tones. Phai built up the loose, painterly surface and the atmospheric appearance of the painting with the use of the palette knife that allude to his training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts de I’Indochine just before it was closed in 1945. This painting is considered to be a major work of the artist in this genre. For its relatively large size, it is probable that the canvas was provided either by a gallery or a private collector for Phai to print on. The painting was then displayed and sold in Paris.

Executed in the late 1980s, probably a year or two before the artist’s death in 1988, the painting is a good example of the artist’s increasingly expressive brush stokes and his use of a muted palette of earthly tones in the late paintings. Street scenes of Hanoi was the favourite theme of Phai during the 1970s and 1980s as the artist’s poor health and living conditions restricted his mobility. The mood is usually sombre and often, the streets would be empty and desolate or like in this instance, a solitary figure is inconspiciously positioned in the foreground.