Bui Xuan Phai, « Portrait of my son Bui Ky Anh », 1979, or a secular requiem

“Portrait of My Son Bui Ky Anh,” mixed media work on paper, signed and dated 1979 in the top left corner, measures 7 x 5 cm. These (his) vignettes showcase Bui Xuan Phai’s talent.

Beyond his propensity for depicting Hanoi’s streets and chèo actors, Bui Xuan Phai offers us a rare, intimate work: a posthumous portrait of his eldest son, Bui Ky Anh (1954–1978), in military garb.

This sensitive, intimate, and moving portrait was completed a year after the death of his son.

It is an equally militant portrait.

It’s an unarmed soldier wearing a cap instead of a helmet. He doesn’t impose himself, but looks into the distance.

Serious.

The artist places a spot of color between his lips, the same ochre yellow as the background. This background is streaked with black strokes — the same black with which Bui Xuan Phai structured the portrait of his son. He used these same black lines in particular in his series of “paintings made in an underground shelter” during the tragic American bombing of Hanoi in December 1972.

On April 30, 1975, Bui Ky Anh entered Saigon with his army unit, which was supported by tanks. A few days later, spurred by a sudden impulse, he wandered the city alone, searching for his maternal aunt, his mother’s younger sister, who had “emigrated” from North Vietnam to South Vietnam in 1954. Their reunion was filled with joy and tears. She worked for a French airline and described Saigon’s new status as a “fall” rather than a “liberation…” She insisted that he stays with her for a few days. However, upon returning to his unit, Bui Kỳ Anh was disciplined for his unauthorized absence.

After being demobilized, he returned to Hanoi. However, as an sanctioned ex-soldier who was ideologically suspect and came from a politically unsound family, his future looked bleak. His father was closely associated with the « Humanisme et Belles Lettres » movement, which resulted in his expulsion from the Hanoi School of Fine Arts in October 1956 (reopened in 1955) and a ban on publishing his drawings. While the situation improved thereafter, a delicate political context persisted in Hanoi from 1975 to 1978.

In fact, Bui Kỳ Anh had a hard time finding a job when he returned. He sank into a long period of deep depression.

He never took up painting himself — a gift from his father, but a questionable legacy for his brother, Bui Thanh Phuong, who would later forge their father’s works.

Instead, he nurtured his deep passion for literature, writing many poems and exchanging correspondence with the immense poets Lưu Quang Vũ (1948-1988) and his wife, Xuân Quỳnh (1942-1988).

In 1978, at the age of twenty-four, he died in a tragic traffic accident.

The following year, Bui Xuan Phai, the artist’s father, presented this portrait.

A critical, secular requiem: What’s the point?

Jean-François Hubert