Year of the Star Horse

Nguyen Tu Nghiem is considered to have been one of the three great masters of Vietnamese modern art, known for bringing the traditional visual culture of Vietnam together with the aesthetics of western Modernism. Born in 1919, he witnessed the rise and fall of many anti-colonial movements and participated in teh 1945 and later uprisings that brought an end to French colonial rule in Vietnam. Despite the turmoil of this period, Nghiem managed to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts de l'Indochine and to promote his work through participation in exhibitions and publications dedicated to nationalist resistance.

Many of Nghiem's paintings incorporate stories, images and customs familiar from Vietnamese village life. Year of the Star Horse is one of many paintings he made relating to the Chinese-Vietnamese zodiac. It commemorates the year of its making, 2002, while also pointing back to 1942, another "Year of the Horse." The 60-year zodiac cycle links these two dates together, but the span between them also coincides with Nghiem's adult life, from his earliest artistic and political awakening to the moment of its production.