Bui Xuan Phai

b. 1920 — d. 1988

Bùi Xuân Phái was a Vietnamese painter. He is famous for the paintings of Hanoi Old Quarter. The best known of all Vietnamese modern painters, Bui Xuan Phai is respected and admired for both his art and moral character. He epitomizes for the Vietnamese the lone artist suffering for his art: he lost his teaching position at the Hanoi College of Fine Arts in 1957 for supporting Nhân Văn affair a movement for political and cultural freedom and was not allowed to show his work in public until a solo exhibition in 1984. However, he was awarded posthumously Ho Chi Minh prize in 1996, the highest national prize in Vietnam. Among others he is exhibited by Hanoi art gallerist Huynh Thong Nhat.