City life: Cyclo, a water colour from Choe's collection on display at the Tu Do Gallery in HCM City. — VNS Photo Duc Ngoc

HCM CITY (VNS)— Sixty oil on canvas and water colours by late cartoonist Choe, or Nguyen Hai Chi, are on display at the Tu Do Gallery in HCM City.

The works are from Choe's two collections Women of My Country and Vision d'Ete 1998 (Summer Landscapes 1998) that are kept by his family.

Women of My Country consists of 10 water colours done for Asian Cartoon, an exhibition held in Japan in 1995.

The paintings contain irony and metaphoric descriptions of the hardship faced by Vietnamese women.

One painting has a woman carrying her husband and children on a shoulder pole and another has one driving a cyclo with a TV, motorcycle, other appliances and even a car.

Vision d'Ete 1998 comprises 20 oil on canvas paintings done when he was in France for treatment. It was exhibited at the Savigny le Temple commune in France.

In this collection, Choe used oil paints to depict French landscapes of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, as well as images of former French President Jacques Chirac as a goalkeeper on the occasion of the World Cup 1998, which was held in France.

The exhibition also features other paintings on nature, like Nature and Life, and Twilight, as well as portraits of Vietnamese musicians, painters, poets and journalists.

Born in An Giang in 1944, Choe was an internationally acclaimed cartoonist. He died in 2003 in Virginia, the US.

His works have been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions in Viet Nam, the US, France, Japan and Sweden.

His cartoons have been published in many newspapers in Viet Nam and other countries, including Tuoi Tre (Youth), Lao Dong (Labour), The New York Times and Okinawa Times.

Tu Do Gallery is located at 53 Ho Tung Mau Street, District 1. The exhibition will be open until May 31. —VNS