The grand opening of a gallery dedicated to the ‘Houei’ (Prosperity) collection of famous Vietnamese artists –created paintings collected by Mr Itoh Toyokichi, a Japanese national, recently took place at the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum, 78 Le Duan, attracting a great deal of public attention.

The Japanese collector donated a collection of 238 paintings by famous Vietnamese painters to Da Nang. He also lent 49 others works in the collection to Da Nang for long term. The collection has been handed over to the museum. On display at the gallery are now 22 best paintings selected from the collection.

Houei features the ‘brainchildren’ of many well-known Vietnamese painters graduating from the Indochina College of Fine Arts (the predecessor of the Viet Nam University of Fine Arts), such as Nguyen Gia Tri, Tran Van Can, Tu Duyen, To Lien, and Duong Bich Lien. The donation is of great importance in terms of diplomacy and people-to-people exchange between Viet Nam and Japan, and it also made contribution to enriching Viet Nam’s fine arts.

Let’s take a look at some of the on-display paintings at the ‘Houei’ gallery.

‘Garden in a rural house’ by painter Pham Viet Hong Lam in 1987

‘Guerrilla fighter’ by Duong Huong Minh in 1979

'Street corner’ by Pham Van Don in 1975

‘Scenery’ by Nguyen Tien Chung in 1972

‘Folk Dance’ by Tran Van Can in 1964

‘Landscape’ by Tran Dinh Tho in 1962

‘House’ by Nguyen Si Tot in 1966

Reporting by DNO- Translating by A.T