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Wildlife painter · Ho Chi Minh City · in the field since 1999

Đào Văn Hoàng

I was born in Saigon in 1962. At two I was already drawing animals in chalk in front of the house. My mother took me to Thảo Cầm Viên zoo, and in the evening I would copy from memory the creatures I had seen.

In 1979 I left Vietnam by sea. France took me in, and I lived there seventeen years, teaching myself to paint while I worked in technical drawing and graphic design. I returned to Saigon in 1996 as a creative director in advertising, for Biti's, Dutch Lady and Prudential. In 2014 I stopped everything to do one thing only: paint the living world.

I do not paint only for art. I paint so that these animals are known, loved and protected. If one day a machine paints more seductive pictures than mine, it will not be able to put into them what I lived through, face to face with the animal.

Since then I have painted murals for Cát Tiên, Tràm Chim and Bidoup Núi Bà, an underwater world across the waiting area and consultation rooms of the Hospital of Tropical Diseases, exhibitions for rescue centres, and plates for the WWF, Free The Bears, Wildlife At Risk, Save Vietnam's Wildlife and Re:wild. I paint the species of Southeast Asia, and above all the endangered ones that conservation campaigns rarely mention. My notebooks come from twenty-five countries. In 2019, with my wife Lê Quỳnh Huệ, we founded Le Petit Musée to pass all of this on to children.

I studied the proportions of each species very carefully, their behaviour and their habitat, with conservation scientists.

  1. 1962Born in Saigon
  2. 1979Leaves Vietnam by sea, then seventeen years in France
  3. 1996Returns to Saigon, creative director in advertising
  4. 1999First mural: 200 m² at Cát Tiên National Park
  5. 2014Shows 22 primate paintings at the primatology congress in Hanoi, and leaves advertising to paint full time
  6. 2014-19Exhibits at primatology congresses: Hanoi, Oregon, Rome, Washington, Thailand
  7. 2019Founds Le Petit Musée with Lê Quỳnh Huệ
  8. 2025First solo exhibition, Wildlife Art: The Natural World through an artist's eyes. Hội Mỹ thuật TP.HCM, 13 to 19 July

In the field

Taking notes in the bush, where every painting begins. From a report by THDT2, Đồng Tháp television.

In his own words

Every painting carries the note he wrote the day he saw the animal. These three come from the catalogue, unedited.

Like A Night Heron Wing
The Vietnamese title of this piece comes from a well-known song by a beloved poet-musician: one who sometimes wove bird names into his lyrics. In this case, the black-crowned night heron. At Tràm Chim National Park, I was struck by the forest’s reflection on the water and by the way the heron appeared, crossed the frame, and was gone in seconds. A fleeting moment I wanted to keep.
Like A Night Heron Wing Night Heron
Khe Ru
Khe Ru is one of my favorite forest guard stations in Vietnam: built by the local K’tu people, in their traditional style. Though the reservoir below is artificial, the view from the hut at sunrise is breathtaking. Watching a serpent eagle glide over that quiet lake forest was a moment I wanted to hold onto.
Khe Ru Crested Serpent Eagle
Social event
At Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia, three species of vultures still gather, not for feeding but to interact with each other. I watched from a hide for hours. They circled, landed, strutted, but never touched the buffalo carcass below. Jonathan Eames thinks some might be juveniles, just showing off. The smaller birds in the scene added a bit of lightness, like guests arriving late to a party.
Social event Vultures

The animals he has painted

61 species

Field notes, one letter a month

Where I went, what I saw, what is on the easel. Nothing else, and one click to unsubscribe.

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