The Fine Art Record A free reference on collected artists
Vu Cao Dam1908–2000 Learn about yours
Detail of Vu Cao Dam's oil painting Duo pour le héros: a man in a blue robe and two young women against a rose-pink ground

Vu Cao Dam

Vũ Cao Đàm · Vietnamese painter and sculptor in France · 1908–2000

Trained as a sculptor in Hanoi, he left for France in 1931 and spent seventy years making Vietnam his subject, in bronze, on silk and in oil.

Keep studying with perseverance, even when you are not satisfied with yourself. Never be discouraged.

Vu Cao Dam to Thụy Khuê. Translated from the Vietnamese.

Vũ Cao Đàm was born in Hanoi in 1908 and trained as a sculptor at the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine. He left for France in 1931 and never returned. In 1946 he modelled a portrait bust of Ho Chi Minh, which spent years hidden on a French farm and reached Hanoi in bronze in 1998.

He turned to painting on silk in the 1930s and to oil in the 1950s. From 1959 he lived in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, painting the calm figures and misty gardens for which he is known. He died at Nice in 2000.

Read the biography

Selected works

A man in a blue robe seated with two young women, one playing a moon-shaped lute, against a rose-pink ground
Duo pour le héros Oil on canvas. © Estate of Vu Cao Dam. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $118,750, 2026
A seated woman in a coral robe on a white cloud against a yellow ground, one hand raised
Divinité Oil on canvas. © Estate of Vu Cao Dam. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $52,500, 2022
A mother in pink holding a child in blue among red and yellow blossoms
Maternity 1966. Oil on canvas. © Estate of Vu Cao Dam. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $40,000, 2021
A woman in pale blue holding a bouquet of white flowers in a blue garden
La Cueillette 1972. Oil on canvas. © Estate of Vu Cao Dam. Photo: Revere Auctions. Sold $27,500, 2021

Prices include the buyer's premium.

Explore

Biography

The life of Vu Cao Dam, 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

8 museums and public collections that hold the work.

Exhibitions

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

Bibliography

12 books, catalogues, essays and articles.

Circle

The teachers, classmates, friends and family around Vu Cao Dam.

Videos

Films and talks from museums and public media.