Art sale to celebrate Southeast Asian women artists

<br>Live till April 22 at Bonhams.com, the sale titled ‘Ritual and Culture’ features more than thirty 20th century paintings

Among the highlights is a curated group of paintings depicting the mesmerising beauty of women in Southeast Asia, as well as the crucial roles they play in society.

The group of works is led by Hanoi by French artist Alix Ayme, who had travelled in and painted extensively in Asia. The painting features a classic street scene with a Vietnamese mother strolling along a path, her baby nestled by her hips, as the city Hanoi – depicted by Ayme as a verdant sub-tropical paradise – comes into spring.

Created in the 1920s during the artist’s first sojourn in Vietnam, Hanoi is one of her earliest paintings and a rare oil-on-panel example to come to the art market.

Through the lens of cultural insiders, Nguyen Trung and Boi Tran both draw inspiration from women wearing the elegant Vietnamese gown, the “ao dai”, which pays tribute to the beauty and grace of generations of ladies in Vietnam. A similar penchant for the subject is also seen in Burmese modern painter U Lun Gywe, whose ‘Bathing by the Riverside’ perfectly encapsulates the artist’s impressionist style

A private collection of rare-to-market works by Antonio Blanco, a Filipino-born Balinese painter of Spanish descent, will also be on sale. The collection comprises the artist’s figurative paintings and exquisite poems, revealing his immense passion and pride for his adopted home of Bali.

(Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in)

–IANS<br>sj/tb