Lê Bá Đảng (Lê, his name, Bá, his intercalary name and Đảng, his first name) was born in 1921 in Bích La Đông (province of Quang Tri, near Huê, former imperial capital of Vietnam), in a family of wealthy peasants. From 1950, he will now sign all his works «Lebadang» by linking the 3 syllables of his name.As a teenager, he felt the need to escape his condition and decided to go to France where he spent most of his life, with a few stays in the United States and Japan. In 1939, he...

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  Biography of Thu Xanh Lebadang

  Lê Bá Đảng (Lê, his name, Bá, his intercalary name and Đảng, his first name) was born in 1921 in Bích La Đông (province of Quang Tri, near Huê, former imperial capital of Vietnam), in a family of wealthy peasants. From 1950, he will now sign all his works «Lebadang» by linking the 3 syllables of his name.
  As a teenager, he felt the need to escape his condition and decided to go to France where he spent most of his life, with a few stays in the United States and Japan. In 1939, he voluntarily enlisted in the service of the Indigenous Workforce attached to the French Ministry of Labour; Lebadang will be one of these «Indochinese workers» often recruited by force by the French State, at the beginning of the Second World War.
  Arriving in Marseille in March 1940, after a stint in the new Baumettes prison, he was interned in a camp like many other Indochinese workers. From prison to disciplinary camp, he escaped and eventually returned to Toulouse.
  From 1942 to 1948, he attended the School of Fine Arts in Toulouse (painting, sculpture). His condition gradually improved, he created posters. In 1948, he graduated and decided to go to Paris where there was a cultural effervescence that attracted him. He paints, draws, makes inks, washes, watercolors, often works in series.
  In the early 50s, Lebadang saw his first solo exhibitions organized (Paris, Cannes, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier and Nantes). In 1958, the artist discovered lithography in the Arts-Litho studio and attended the studio of Fernand Mourlot and Jacques Desjobert.
  England, Germany, Switzerland and Norway welcomed his works, opening the way to the United States and the interest of galleries and collectors.In 1964, he made «Huit chevaux», his first portfolio in relief, without colors or ink, on poems and calligraphies by Chou Ling, who inaugurated his first research on the material and techniques of printmaking. In 1966, the Cincinnati Art Museum offered him its first solo exhibition in the United States, then it will be an exhibition in Philadelphia.The year 1970 is placed under the sign of the print. Lebadang publishes several portfolios and innovates new techniques in printmaking: engravings-reliefs, embossings, etchings on embossed background, lithographs on double paper Japan, lithographs and reliefs, etc. Bernard Remusat’s printing workshop in Mougins near Cannes and Caillan, in the Var, will be the place of experimentation for all the prints that Lebadang will create. The artist’s themes are usual, the relief engravings are abstract landscapes that begin the great series of «Spaces» of 1985.Recognition of Lebadang’s work continued to grow throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974, during the ArtExpo in New York, he met John «Jack» Solomon, president of Circle Gallery in the United States. Circle Gallery will represent artists such as Victor Vasarely, Erté, Sandro Chia or Yaacov Agam. A series of exhibitions across America will follow. In 1978, Lebadang worked with Vietnamese composer Nguyen Thien Dao to create a set and costumes for his opera «My Chau - Trong Thuy» at the Paris Opera. In the 1980s, in addition to engraving and painting, the artist embarked on wood carving and jewelry making, and in 1985 he began his series «Espaces», a series of printed works, bas-reliefs and collages that recreated a sculpted field.Lebadang continued to work tirelessly until his death in Paris in 2015, without wavering in general admiration. He received honorary citizenship of the City of New Orleans in Louisiana in 1991, was named Honorary Citizen of the Year in Cambridge, England in 1992, and two years later, was named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture.Lebadang’s work is exhibited in galleries in Düsseldorf, Paris, Nantes, Cologne, Cannes and Aix en Provence. His work is part of many permanent private and public collections, including: Rockefeller Collection, New York; Tokyo Toilet Collection; Verkerke Collection, Holland; Phoenix Museum of Art, USA; Cincinnati Museum, United States; Columbia Institute of Art, USA; Lund University Museum, Sweden; Foundation Museum, Kenya; and the Museum of Arts and Letters, France, among others.In Vietnam, the city of Huê and the authorities of the province of Thùa Thiên-Huê inaugurated, in the presence of the artist in 2006, the Lebadang Art Foundation which permanently preserves and exhibits more than 400 works of the artist reflecting more than 70 years of creation.
  
  

  

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