Lac Hong Gallery

by Le Quoc Bao

When visiting Ho Chi Minh City, people who are fond of arts should not miss the opportunity to come over to Lac Hong Gallery, a very well-known destination for artists and intellectuals.

The owner, Tran Ngoc Diep, is an authority on Vietnamese contemporary artists. Born into a traditional artistic family, Ngoc Diep soon inherited from her father his great passion for the arts, and his talented eye.

Ngoc Diep has studied, made careful selections, searched for new fruits in paintings. Knowing that any art will fade away if not duly preserved, she set up a gallery of her own in order to collect and preserve the priceless paintings created by generations of Vietnamese painters.

She chose  the name "Lac Hong" for her gallery to express her respect to the nation's ancestors. She is rightly proud of the ancestral Viet's mythical race of Fairies and Dragons, and she wants to bring the spirit of that pride into her gallery.

Over the twenty years of its existence, Lac Hong Gallery has introduced to the public a large number of works made by famous Vietnamese painters from the Old Masters such as To Ngoc Van, Tran Van Can, Nguyen Phan Chanh, Nguyen Sang, Nguyen Tu Nghiem, Duong Bich Lien, Bui Xuan Phai, to the next generations such as Luu Cong Nhan, Tran Luu Hau, Nguyen Trung, Do Quang Em, Dao Minh Tri, Bui Suoi Hoa, Le Xuan Chieu, Nguyen Thanh Binh and Nguyen Dieu Thuy.

More importantly, Ngoc Diep has a talent for bringing together artists and organizing exhibitions of their works, so that she can help them to keep in touch and exchange their voice of experience with many overseas artists. That is an excellent way to approach the modern world's arts and enlarge the collaboration with a number of galleries all over the world. In short, Lac Hong Gallery has become a sacred space where Vietnamese Art is truly gloried.

Le Quoc Bao
Vietnamese Art Critic
Ho Chi Minh CIty
March 2007