Travels in Saigon: Art Museums

There are not a ton of museums in Saigon, which is surprising for a capital city. However the two art museums we visited were both impressive in their own distinct ways. On our second day we visited the Quang San Art Museum, which is a private gallery located on the river, in a nice part of the city. We saw international schools, fancy coffee shops, nice sidewalks, and some very impressive private homes, some with 12-foot tall gates, on the way to the museum.

The museum has three floors and air conditioning, which made it a win right off the bat, even if the entrance tickets weren’t cheap. It has a classy vibe upon entering, and the curator did a nice job in arranging the art on all three floors, featuring Vietnamese contemporary and modern artists. There were many Vietnamese Lacquer paintings (in the first picture below), as well as oil, watercolor, and silk paintings.

Here are some of our favorites:

There is an outside patio space on the Saigon River for relaxing. The museum is also an event space, and they have a gift shop too. We relaxed and enjoyed the breeze.

The other art museum is right in the heart of Saigon, the Fine Arts Museum of Ho Chi Minh City. Housed in three, three-story buildings and feature Vietnamese paintings of oil, silk, and lacquer, as well as sculptures and woodcuttings, and ancient Champa relics. There is A/C in only some of the rooms, so those are good for breaks from the heat.

The buildings themselves are also quite impressive, if a bit decrepit, sadly. The main building was built in the early 1930s and the others later, designed by a French architect, with lots of cool art deco designs inside. We took almost as many pictures of the buildings and the architecture as we did of the art, and there is a lot of great art to see.

Some of my favorite oil paintings:

Lacquer Paintings:

Below, the lacquer painting “Central South and North Spring Garden” is huge (18ft x 6.5 ft, or 540cm x 200cm). It took artist Nguyen Gia Tri over 20 years to complete (1969-1989), and is classified as a National Treasure.

Silk paintings:

Woodcut and Lithographs:

The third building looks the most restored from the outside, and houses the ancient pieces made of stone, bronze, ceramic. It is located across from an excellent cafe (where we had salt coffees and split toasted banana bread and an almond croissant) and the museum gift shop.

There is a very cool spiral staircase inside.

It housed Cham stone sculptures (like we saw in Da Nang):

Ancient Ceramics:

Ancient Wood Carvings:

Bronze figurines:

If that wasn’t enough, there are sculptures in the courtyard between all the buildings.

We were pretty exhausted after our visit, as you can tell by all the things we saw; the buildings need some TLC, as the art is top notch, and that would make the museum more on par with other world class ones.

We decided to skip the War Museum here as we saw a couple museums in Da Nang that highlighted war, even though it is the most recognized museum in Saigon. Instead, we visited the Southern Women’s Museum, which had a floor dedicated to the women who fought in the wars against the French and later, the Americans. It was a powerful museum.

It is free to enter but there is no A/C, and it is hot inside. Our personal fans actually died on us while exploring, so we had to put up with oppressive heat with no respite. On the first floor is one room dedicated to watercolor portrait paintings of the mothers who lost their children in the Vietnamese wars for independence, done by painter Dang Ai Viet.

The second floor is devoted to the Ao Dai dress, which is a long split tunic worn over silk trousers.

There is also a room of different Southern Vietnamese Women’s tribal dress.

The third floor featured the history and highlighted the women who participated and fought in the Vietnamese wars for independence. There is a traditional phrase we saw a few places, that says “when the enemy comes to the house, women also fight back,” and that has been exemplified by the Vietnamese women remembered here. Some were tortured, killed, jailed, exiled; all fought back. It was a very powerful exhibit, and one not soon forgotten.

In front of the museum is a two story house, which houses a small, free museum, called the House of Lacquer Art. We actually visited this first and were a bit confused as we were expecting a museum about Southern Vietnamese Women; we asked each other, did women do all this art? Where is the exhibit on the wars and Aoi Dai? We eventually figured it out.

There was some really great lacquer artworks and it is definitely worth seeing, either before or after, visiting the Southern Women’s Museum. Here are some of my favorite pieces.

My favorite was the Peacock room divider:

Well, that was a lot of art in just one post, I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did getting to see it up close. The final post from Saigon is up next!