Young Girl With A Banana Tree - Mai Thu - Oil On Canvas, Signed - Vietnam - Indochina

Young girl near a banana tree - Mai Thu - Oil on Canvas - Vietnam - Indochina

This painter remains a mystery. His works, initially attributed to Mai Trung Thu during his early career before he left for France in 1943, were later rejected by Mai Trung Thu’s family. These works were then reattributed to a certain Nguyen Mai Thu. However, this new attribution seems highly questionable, if not entirely speculative, as no biographical information about this individual exists, and the signature on the paintings has never included the surname Nguyen or the initial "N." The name Nguyen Mai Thu first appeared in auctions in 2017 and has since been reused for convenience whenever a new painting with this signature emerges.
Regardless, the distinctly European style of these paintings suggests the artist was trained by French professors, likely at the Hanoi School of Fine Arts, considering the location of his landscapes. His body of work, exclusively oil on canvas, is mostly set in Tonkin and occasionally dated between 1933 and 1950. He typically signs his paintings "M. Thu," although two paintings from 1934 and 1935 are signed "mai thu."