The world is flooded with fake-Bui Xuan Phai paintings. Even Sotheby’s has been taken in by the frauds according to the painter’s son.
Bui Xuan Phai is possibly the most famous painter in the history of Vietnamese art. A graduate of Ecole des Beaux Arts d’Indochine (now the Hanoi University of Fine Art), Phai soaked up the lyrical abstractionism of Europe and expressionist tones of the US in mid-20th century, before creating his own visions of Vietnam. He is perhaps best known for his depictions of Hanoi’s Old Quarter, hence the nickname, ‘Pho Phai’, (Phai Street).
Critical acclaim came late in his life, however. Phai, who died in 1988, lived through severe economic hardship. He lost his job over his political beliefs in the 1950s and remained ostracised from the art scene until 1984. Regardless of this isolation, he had been working, suffering in silence for his art. At one stage he is even said to have traded paintings for food. Yet after Vietnam opened up to the world market, the value of his work was quickly acknowledged overseas and now two decades after he died from lung cancer, an original painting of his work can sell for tens of thousands of US dollars.
The problem is that the market is inundated with fakes, or ‘faux Phai’ paintings, as they are now known. Nobody can be sure how much work Phai produced, but by the mid-nineties every gallery and art shop in Hanoi seemed to be selling Phai street paintings, most of which had not been painted by him. According to Phai’s son, Bui Danh Phuong, also an artist, Sotheby’s, the world’s second oldest auction house, in Hong Kong has been taken in after auctioning off faux Phais earlier this month and also last April.
Phuong has sent five letters to Sotheby’s but has yet to receive a reply. He is now making a stand and threatening legal action. “I have known about this for a long time, but I have to speak up now,” says Phuong. “I feel disappointed as Sotheby’s claims to have experienced painting appraisers, yet they have been deceived by forgeries.” Sotheby’s recently had five Bui Xuan Phai pictures listed on its website, four of which were fakes, says Phuong.
There were two pictures of Cheo (Vietnamese opera) and two streets scenes. The sole genuine picture was named Red Cat, which Phai drew on a post-card for his friends during Tet Nguyen Dan (Lunar New Year festival). In my amateurish opinion I imagine Phai’s simple and rugged style leaves his work susceptible to forgery but Phuong is dismissive of the fake Cheo paintings.
“The artists don’t understand anything about Phai’s paintings. They drew awkwardly,” he says. Yet these paintings were put up for sale at a Sotheby’s auction recently and sold for a combined fee of $40,255. After Phuong announced his intention to sue the auction house all information about the five pictures was suddenly removed from the firm’s website. In April Sotheby’s auctioned six paintings by Bui Xuan Phai, which Phuong also claims were fakes, for a total price of more than $232,500.
According to Phuong one lacquer painting, which sold for $106,571, is just a knock off version of an oil painting titled Before performing Cheo, which is sitting in Vietnam’s Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi. He says another picture Tran Thinh, which sold for $64,841, is a copy of a piece owned by Tham Don Thu, a Viet Kieu living in France. “The fake picture is dated 1971, but I saw the original drawn in 1974 with my own eyes,” says Phuong.
A factory of fakers Bui Xuan Phai is not the only artist whose body of work attracts the copy cats. Phuong believes that by suing Sotheby’s he is making a statement not just about his father’s paintings but for all Vietnamese artists. “You cannot find original pictures by painters like Nguyen Sang or Nguyen Phan Chanh now,” says Phuong, adding that there are more fake Bui Xuan Phai paintings in the world than originals.
Of course, the art world has always had to deal with forgeries, but in Vietnam there is also a low end culture of copying that exists. In Vietnam numerous workshops openly copy paintings by classic artists such as Van Gogh or Pablo Picasso as well as Vietnamese artists, such as To Ngoc Van, Nguyen Sang or Tran Van Can.
These workshops have no intention of hoodwinking Sotheby’s or foreign art collectors and sell paintings as cheap decoration for people’s houses or offices. But between the “low end and the high-end” forgeries, Phuong estimates there is one $1 million worth of fake Bui Xuan Phai paintings sold each year.
Contemporary artists are also losing out. Le Thiet Cuong’s deceptively simple rural scenes are frequently copied. Near a gallery where his actual work sells for $5,000 another gallery will be selling a forgery under his name for $300. Speaking to Time magazine last year he compared the problem to trying to stop pirated Hollywood films. While unscrupulous galley owners and traders nonchalantly flood the market with fakes back in Vietnam, the top contemporary Vietnamese artists and masters’ work is being sold off in exhibitions and auctions held overseas.
Laying down the law According to Vi Kien Thanh from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Department of Fine Art, Photography and Exhibition, Vietnam’s art market is underdeveloped and the market for fake paintings is difficult to curb. As the nation fails to manage the situation it will inevitably lose its prestige. Phuong claims that Vietnamese art lovers will lose confidence, both locally and abroad.
“In future people will think that the fake pictures are genuine ones and wonder how Vietnam’s most famous painters could paint such bad pictures,” he says. Le Thiet Cuong also believes Vietnam’s art scene has been adversely affected. “I am not sure when it can recover,” he says.
“But how can we not solve the problem of all those illegal copy shops in the street?” Phuong claims no case of forgery has ever been punished in Vietnam. Regulations on auctioning work in Vietnam and abroad are needed while copyright laws need to be enforced.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is said to be now drafting a decree on auctioning art for both home and abroad. Certificates will be required to authenticate all work submitted for auctions.
