Born in Soc Trang in 1940, Nguyen Trung is Vietnam’s foremost abstract painter. His artistic career spans over fifty years in a life marked by French colonial rule and the Vietnam War. A champion of abstraction in Vietnam, Nguyen and a number of younger artists who he mentored created work in this genre when it was still considered a self- indulgent, decadent art form that placed the individual before  the  State. Through his resilience and commitment as a true creative force in the Vietnamese art community, he is considered one of the country’s most accomplished artists. (Quynh Pham)