Vietnam Art Museum

The Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum is located at 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Hanoi. The Museum draws a large number of national and international visitors not only by quality of the collections, but also by the artistic architecture of the historic building.

History

The Museum’s building was constructed during the French colonial period. It was originally a boarding school for daughters of French officials.

Research in the museum is divided into seven departments: anthropology, botany, entomology, invertebrate zoology, mineral sciences, paleobiology, vertebrate zoology.

In 1962, the Vietnamese Government ordered the Ministry of Culture to transform this building into a place to collect, exhibit and preserve the precious and special works of art of Vietnam from the prehistoric time until present days. The building was renovated and Vietnamese architectural elements were added, making it a building suitable for an art museum.

Displays

In 1966, the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum officially opened to the public. The entire area of the museum is 4,737m2 of which the exhibition space is around 3,000m2. In addition to the permanent displays, the Museum has a space for temporary exhibitions, a Creative Space for Children and a Café. Besides the main site in Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, the Museum has another site in Hoang Cau Street where professional departments, collections storage, and a conservation centre are located.

The Vietnam Fine Arts Museum currently holds more than 18,000 domestic artifacts representing Vietnam's fine arts from prehistoric times to the present.

Some famous Vietnamese painters have works displayed here such as: Nguyen Gia Tri, To Ngoc Van, Tran Van Can, Nguyen Phan Chanh, Luong Xuan Nhi..

Many of the works on display at the Museum of Fine Arts are now confidential copies because the originals have been sold or lost. According to Nora Taylor, an expert on Vietnamese paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, about half of the paintings are copies. During the Vietnam War, many originals were evacuated and copies were displayed, but many of the originals were not returned to their original locations.

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