Boi Tran's ‘Madonna’, the First Time Presented and Phenomenally Hammered at Sotheby’s in 2008

Sotheby's Hong Kong

First presented and auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2008, Madonna marks a quiet milestone in Boi Tran’s artistic journey. Rooted in solitude, shaped by grace, the work reflects her devotion to the timeless feminine, serene, wounded, yet transcendent. It was not just her first auctioned painting. It was a moment where the world paused to listen.

Boi Tran (Vietnam, B. 1957), Madonna, 2005. Oil on canvas, 129,5 x 100 cm. (51 x 39 1/4 in.). Sold for HKD 43,750 (USD 6,688) on 5 October 2008 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. Sotheby’s, Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian, Hong Kong
Boi Tran (Vietnam, B. 1957), Madonna, 2005. Oil on canvas, 129,5 x 100 cm. (51 x 39 1/4 in.). Sold for HKD 43,750 (USD 6,688) on 5 October 2008 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. Sotheby’s, Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian, Hong Kong

Boi Tran’s pictorial work presents profound originality: it is part of an isolated approach, removed from the dominant schools; it expresses the search for universal humanism deeply rooted in a characteristically Vietnamese sensitivity.

Boi Tran’s paintings and lacquers fit neither into the line of the School of Fine Arts in Hanoi nor into a hypothetical school of the South that might be named “the Gia Dinh school”.

Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings Catalogue, Hong Kong, 6 October 2008.
Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings Catalogue, Hong Kong, 6 October 2008.

Born in Hue, in central Vietnam, a city that suffered more than engendered the painful political events of the 20th century, the artist knew nothing of the influences, positive or negative, that nourished “the Schools”. Hers is a solitary body of work, freed from social contingencies, hierarchical obligations, and compromises, that was elaborated.

And her approach inscribes itself in an exacerbated quest for humanism. From this doctrine, which holds as its finality the human being and his/her unfolding, Boi Tran extolled a quest for the absolute of which she was the medium: mourning, solitude, material hardship, which she was more than touched by, must be sublimated in order to be transcended. And going beyond reality must begin by outreaching oneself. However, the “self” must remain of the earth: the artist is not one of the damned, but an actor of reality; he decorates the concept, just as one sets the table for a feast. Boi Tran’s Eden-like garden in Hue on the Thien An hill bears witness to this: diversity, elegance, but for simplicity as well, a lotus or an epiphyllum, whose owner opens during the night before quickly vanishing, communicates this. The garden would not exist without Boi Tran, yet Boi Tran the painter would not exist without the garden. Double elegance: the model is her subject. A student of the famous painter Nguyen Trung, whom she met in 1995, whose muse she became and for whom she remained a model, she transcended herself. A superficial study would reveal the great similarity of expression between the two artists, whereas, much more subtly, in Boi Tran’s creations the model, the object, in other words transcends itself in as much as the object represented becomes its own subject: it leaves the painting, escapes from the painter and represents itself: the “self” becomes “me” and the transcendence is complete.

Boi Tran and her work "Madonna". Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 100 cm. (51 x 39 1/4 in.). Estimate HKD 40,000 - 60,000 (USD 5,200 - 7,700); Price Realised HKD 43,750 (USD 6,688) at Sotheby's Hong Kong: Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian, 5 October 2008
Boi Tran and her work "Madonna". Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 100 cm. (51 x 39 1/4 in.). Estimate HKD 40,000 - 60,000 (USD 5,200 - 7,700); Price Realised HKD 43,750 (USD 6,688) at Sotheby's Hong Kong: Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian, 5 October 2008
Boi Tran and "Lady with Champa Flowers" by Nguyen Trung (Vietnamese, B. 1940), signed and dated 'Ng.Trung 95' (lower right), lacquer on panel, 120 x 79.5cm (47¼ by 31¼ in.) in Boi Tran Garden Collection at Sotheby's Hong Kong: Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian, 5 October 2008
Boi Tran and "Lady with Champa Flowers" by Nguyen Trung (Vietnamese, B. 1940), signed and dated 'Ng.Trung 95' (lower right), lacquer on panel, 120 x 79.5cm (47¼ by 31¼ in.) in Boi Tran Garden Collection at Sotheby's Hong Kong: Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian, 5 October 2008

The work of Boi Tran brings us back to Nguyen Gia Thieu (1741-1798) and to his masterpiece, the “Cung Oan Ngam Khuc” (Sadness of the Palace)

“That the wind and the moon be our friends henceforth,
The river of Peacefulness, the torch of Wisdom,
Let us leave this world of dust with serene steps,
Living removed from things, that is being immortal here below”

© Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian, Hong Kong, 5 October 2008

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