Kỳ Đồng meets Gauguin
From: Nora Taylor
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 3:53 PM
Dear List,
I am trying to find a reference to an anecdote, real or fictional, about a Vietnamese prince in exile in Tahiti who had met Gauguin. In the recesses of my memory, during my time at Cornell, I had read a play that recounts this meeting and I can't find my notes. Would anyone happen to know this story? Thank you.
Nora
Nora Annesley Taylor,PhD
Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Curator
"Changing Identity: Recent Works by Women Artists from Vietnam"
www.artsandartists.org
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 4:01 PM
Not a prince, but a prodigy (Ky Dong). Lorraine is writing a book about him and gave a great talk about Ky Dong and Gauguin at my Vietnamese Biographies workshop last May.
Hue-Tam
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From: Lorraine Marion Paterson
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 9:58 PM
Dear Nora,
The play you are referring to is one that Nguyễn Văn Cẩm (usually referred to by his nickname Kỳ Đồng) wrote about his friendship with Gauguin in the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. It was originally written in French in 1902 (published as Ky Dong, Les Amours d’Un Vieux Peintre aux Iles Marquises, Paris: A Tempera Editions, 1989) was just translated into Vietnamese in 1990.
As Hue-Tam rightly points out Kỳ Đồng was a child prodigy, not a prince, although most biographers of Gauguin erroneously refer to him as such. His reputed prodigious intelligence is partly what led to a life of exile in various locales of the French colonial world. I am currently writing Kỳ Đồng’s biography using his friendship with Gauguin as an entrée into his life, and thus hoping to interest a wider audience into the subject of French colonial exile.
I interviewed Kỳ Đồng’s grandsons in Papeete, French Polynesia in 2006 and saw the original of the play which is still in their possession. Please contact me off-list if you have any more questions about the play or Kỳ Đồng’s life - I would be happy to answer them.
Best wishes,
Lorraine
Lorraine Paterson
Assistant Professor
Department of Asian Studies
Cornell University