The Hols Gallery is a collector of fine asian art and started it's collection as far back as 1980, i.e. more than 40 years ago. The gallery has according to art expertise the biggest collection of art by Bui Xuan Phai, all with Provenance Certificate, outside Vietnam as well as artwork from some 25 other artists from South East Asia.

The best known of all Vietnamese modern painters, Bui Xuan Phai is respected and admired for both his art and moral character. He epitomizes for the Vietnamese the lone artist suffering for his art: he lost his teaching position at the Hanoi College of Fine Arts in 1957 for supporting a movement for political and cultural freedom and was not allowed to show his work in public until a solo exhibition in 1984. Nicknames "Phai Pho" (street-painting Phai) for his many evocative street scenes of Hanoi, Phai also captured with evident affection Cheo (Vietnamese opera) actresses and musicians backstage and in performance. As early as the 1950s he experimented with abstraction but did not sign these forbidden works, showing them only to family and friends.

For further information on Bui Xuan Phai and Vietnamese Art we strongly recommend the following books:

Painters in Hanoi, including art work from the Hols Gallery, by Professor Nora Annesley Taylor, and

Bui Xuan Phai - The life and works, by his son Bui Thanh Phuong, and Tran Hau Tuan.

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