‘Art is a language that can be understood by everyone. Everyone can share what I want to tell’

Born in Hue, a descendent of the last Vietnamese Emperor, Buu Chi was a self-taught artist. His parents preferred a prestigious legal career for their son, and discouraged his early interest in art.

He graduated from Hue School of Law in 1971, but was imprisoned a year later by the South Vietnamese Government for his anti-war activities, including his leadership of the anti-government student movement.

Prior to his imprisonment, his drawings depicting the horrors of war had been published by the Union of Student Authors, and in overseas Vietnamese publications in France, Germany and Canada. He continued to draw whilst in prison, using whatever materials he could find – matches, cigarette boxes and papers, bamboo sticks, pencils - and his work was smuggled out, appearing in anti-war publications in North America and Europe.

Described by Jeffrey Hantover in ‘Uncorked Soul’ (1991, Plum Blossoms) as a ‘painter of ideas’, Buu Chi’s struggle for social change in the face of isolation and the horror of war - the absurdity of human existence - continued to be expressed in his paintings after his release from prison in 1975.

His early graphic work is in the collection of Boston University Library, and his paintings are in the collection of the Vietnamese Fine Arts Association and private collections world wide.