Dang Lebadang
France, 1921 - 2015
He lived in Paris since 1939, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse for six years until his first one-man show in 1950. He found his first marketable success painting hundreds of cats on ceramic plates, still in high demand. Already an established artist by the 1960s after starring in an exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Lebadang always strove to create what was new and exciting. He created large-scale abstract oil paintings with vivid blues and glowing puddles of orange and red. He sold to tourists and collectors, quickly establishing himself as a serious artist with never-ending creativity.
He also utilized pure foam board as a medium, using a knife to cut out intricate designs. He placed the finished foam between two pieces of glass, creating a frame that allows light to shine through, producing ornate patterns and effects.
Painting and printmaking were Lebadang’s most frequently used media but he also worked in terra cotta and a variety of other media, such as “Vessel” (1994). Whatever he created, each piece spoke to the entangled roles of man and nature.
In his 1981 “La Comédie Humaine,” he wrote: “In my work, I use the circle, the magic symbol of life, to enclose reliefs and landscapes. It symbolizes that nature is inseparable from man. Man finds sustenance and spiritual nourishment in every source.”
The artist’s cast paper reliefs from the 1980s demonstrated this power of the circular shape. The handmade paper he designed was used as a pseudo-frame, ornately surrounding the paint and symbolically playing nature. And while the human form was not represented figuratively in his work until the late 1970s, he confirmed that man was always present.
After dozens of successful exhibitions, Lebadang sent money back to Vietnam to rebuild his devastated village, from the schools to the hospitals, until his village became the best in the country. He was honored by the Vietnamese government with a sponsored Lebadang foundation and museum, the first arts foundation in Vietnam. Splitting his time between Vietnam and Paris, the artist claimed that one day he would retire. But nevertheless, his creativity continued to flourish.
His work is exhibited in many public and private collections, including the Cincinnati Museum of Art in Ohio, the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona, the Rockefeller Collection in New York, the Foundation Museum in Kenya, the Lund University Museum in Sweden, the Loo Collection in Tokyo, and the Museum of Arts and Letters in France.
Lebadang was honored with numerous awards and accolades during his career. He also designed an award for the International Institute of St. Louis. The Lebadang Award is presented biannually to an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary volunteer service. The award program was established by the institute in 1989 to recognize organizations and individuals who exemplify “Peace within you, your country, and the world.”
“My artwork is often strange but simple,” Lebadang once said. “So everyone can hopefully feel happy and relaxed, and that’s why they like them.”
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