About me

Studying, promoting and valuing Vietnamese art is my passion.

Jean-François Hubert in front of Le Pho's Nude, at the Christie's 2019 auction.
At the 2019 Asian Contemporary Art Auction of Christie’s

Although true to French tradition, early and in depth study on the subject was conducted, it has struggled to emerge amongst its major artistic neighbours, India and China.

Even so, Vietnamese painting emerged directly from the creation of the School of Fine Arts by Victor Tardieu (Hanoi 1924), sculpture from Champa in a time of a strong Indian influenced Vietnam (7th to 15th century), the culture of Dong Son (-500 – +100), the art from Funan, a tradition of original ceramics, have written Vietnam into the global art scene.

I prioritised multiple axis to value this art:

  • I have been curator at three pioneering exhibitions : Le Vietnam des royaumes (the Bon Marché, Paris 1995), l’Âme du Vietnam (the Bon Marché, Paris 1996) and La Fleur du Pêcher et l’Oiseau d’Azur (Musée Royal de Mariemont, Morlanwelz, 2002) among others;
  • I am the author of books that are still referenced such as Arts de Vietnam (2002), L’Art du Champa (2005) (see bibliography);
  • I was Chargé de Mission at the Musée Royal de Mariemont (2000-2002);
  • I taught at l’Université de Hué (Collège des Arts, 2013);
  • And, always a constant in my life, I have valued this art;
  • From 1991, I organised unique sales at Drouot – Paris and became a Senior Consultant (1996-2002) at Christie’s and then Sotheby’s (2002-2009) before returning to Christie’s from 2010 until the present. I am currently working as an independent contractor for Christie’s as its Senior Expert, Vietnamese Art. 
  • Référence catalogues, scholarly articles and insightful texts, display the extent of the exerted effort;
  • The Union of Française des Experts (1989) and the Compagnie nationale des Experts (1997) created the qualification and accreditation Art du Vietnam for me;
  • I gave force to my passion by becoming a Master of Law (Paris -Panthéon Assas), a Master of Art History (Paris, Sorbonne) and a diploma of Sciences-Po, Paris.