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Le Pho1907–2001 Learn about yours
Detail of Le Pho's oil painting Fleurs: red, white and yellow flowers against a pale blue sky

Le Pho

Lê Phổ · Vietnamese painter in France · 1907–2001

Trained in Hanoi and settled in France from 1937, he painted women, gardens and flowers, first on silk and then in oil.

I have been in France for sixty years, I hold French citizenship, but there has not been a moment when I have not remembered my homeland.

Le Pho, 1993, quoted in his obituary. Translated from the Vietnamese.

Lê Phổ was born near Hanoi in 1907, the son of a provincial governor, and entered the first class of the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine in 1925. He settled in France in 1937 and lived there for more than sixty years.

He is known first for his silk paintings of women, children and gardens, made from the late 1930s through the 1950s, and then for the bright oils of flowers and figures he painted for his American dealer from the 1960s on. He died in Paris in 2001 without having seen Vietnam again.

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Selected works

Two Vietnamese women among a large white vase and bunches of red, white and blue flowers
Two Women with Flowers Oil on silk-lined Masonite. © Estate of Le Pho. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $187,500, 2022
Two women standing among tall green and pink tropical plants
Two Women among Plants Oil on canvas. © Estate of Le Pho. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $68,750, 2019
Two women in conversation, their figures dissolving into a garden of yellow and blue flowers
Two Women in a Flower Garden Oil on silk laid on Masonite. © Estate of Le Pho. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $68,750, 2022
A bouquet of red, yellow and white flowers in a white vase on an orange cloth
Fleurs (Still Life with a White Vase) Oil on canvas. © Estate of Le Pho. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $52,500, 2023

Prices include the buyer's premium.

Explore

Biography

The life of Le Pho, with notes to every source and a full chronology.

Works

Paintings and prints sold by Revere Auctions, with photographs and prices.

How to Identify

Signatures, materials, labels and how to tell an original from a print or a fake.

Collections

6 museums and public collections that hold the work.

Exhibitions

24 exhibitions, from the early years to the latest museum surveys.

Bibliography

20 books, catalogues, essays and articles.

Circle

The teachers, classmates, friends and family around Le Pho.

Videos

Films and talks from museums and public media.