VietNamNet Bridge – The daughter of late painter Ta Ty, who pioneered Viet Nam’s cubist school, plans to file a lawsuit in HCM City court in an aim to remove her father’s allegedly forged signature on a painting by another Vietnamese artist.

Artist Nguyen Thanh Chuong poses near a painting called Abstract that he says is his own work, and not a work by famed painter Ta Ty, whose signature appears on the painting. VNS Photo Van Dat

The painting sparked controversy last month when it and 16 other works were displayed at the HCM City Fine Arts Museum in an exhibition organised by the museum and the painting’s owner, collector Vu Xuan Chung.

Ta Ty’s daughter, Ta Thuy Chau, said she wanted the signature of her father taken off the painting titled Abstract. She said that her father had been insulted.   

Chau said she would file documents with HCM City’s People Court, demanding a public apology for her father.

Chau visited the museum during the recent exhibition Paintings Returned from Europe after she heard about the controversy and the complaint from painter Thanh Chuong that the Abstract painting, with the signature of Ta Ty, was actually his own work.

The daughter was quoted as saying in Nguoi Lao Dong (Labourer) newspaper that the painting’s style, including colour choice, frame and signature, was not similar to her father’s work.

“My father never signed his paintings that way,” Chau said, adding that even art critics recognised it.

Chau said that she had conducted thorough research and had even called her siblings living in the US to ask about their father’s paintings.

During his career, Ta Ty had only one painting titled Abstract (dated 1951), and it was not similar to Chuong’s work, according to Chau. In addition, the painting in the exhibition at the museum was dated 1952.

"After hearing that my father’s name was associated with a painting by artist Thanh Chuong at the exhibition, we visited and spoke with the HCM City Fine Arts Museum about the mistake," she was quoted as saying in Dan Tri online.

“I demand that they take off Ta Ty’s signature under the witness of a special council consisting of professional experts in Viet Nam," she said. "They also need to publicly apologise to my father."

Lawyer Nguyen Huu Duc said that penalties under the intellectual property law as well as the criminal code would apply if the parties involved were found guilty in court.

Le Thi Hong Hanh, deputy chief of HCM City’s Copyright Office, said: “Let the court decide.”

Vi Kien Thanh, director of the Department of Fine Arts, Photography and Exhibitions, said that he supported Chau’s lawsuit.

Chau said she would ask that the signature be removed by the painting’s owner Vu Xuan Chung and Jean-Francois Hubert, a former senior consultant for Vietnamese art at international auction house Christie’s Hong Kong.  

Chung, the art collector, insisted that the paintings were authentic and that the painting Abstract was created by Ta Ty. He said that Hubert, who was working at Christie’s at the time, had sold the painting with a certificate of authenticity.

Painter Thanh Chuong has also sent a letter to the Ministry of Public Security and the Department of Exhibition, Photography and Fine Arts, saying that his painting had been mistakenly attributed to Ta Ty, whose signature appears on the work.

"I’m sure that I’m the true and only painter of that piece, not Ta Ty," Chuong told Chung, the painting’s owner, during a recent meeting at the Fine Arts Museum.

VNS