Honoring the beauty of Vietnamese cultural heritage through painting

First prize awarded to the woodcut "Under the shadow of a thousand years" by author Le Phi Hung.

Following the success of the first season in 2023, the second "Vietnam Cultural Heritage through Painting" Painting Contest in 2025 continues to affirm its broad social significance, contributing to enriching and diversifying forms of protection and promotion of cultural heritage values, spreading enthusiasm and love for cultural heritage in the community, especially with the young generation.

After 13 months of launching (from August 29, 2024 to September 30, 2025), the Organizing Committee received 1,320 works from 990 authors. Of these, 111 works from 59 authors participated in the first Contest in 2023; 85 authors are ethnic minorities; 249 authors are school-age; 456 authors are under 25 years old; the youngest author is 6 years old; the oldest author is 84 years old. The Contest also attracted the participation of a number of authors who are Vietnamese students studying abroad in countries such as Japan, Australia and the UK.

Awarding prizes to authors whose works won second prize.

This year's entries show richness and diversity in genre and materials, with 436 Acrylic works; 251 oil paintings; 145 graphic prints; 105 lacquer works; 76 silk works; 46 mixed materials works; 239 works using pencil, iron pen, watercolor, pastel, Do paper, Giang paper...

Speaking at the ceremony, Associate Professor, Dr. Do Van Tru, Chairman of the Vietnam Cultural Heritage Association, said: Compared to the first "Vietnam Cultural Heritage through Painting" Painting Contest in 2023, this contest has a remarkable increase in the number of authors and entries (the number of entries is 1.5 times higher, the number of participating authors is more than 2 times higher), proving the growing prestige of the contest and also showing that the interest in cultural heritage of the community, especially the young generation, is increasingly enhanced.

Associate Professor, Dr. Do Van Tru, Chairman of the Vietnam Cultural Heritage Association spoke.

“That also means that we need to always innovate, be creative, dare to think, dare to do, diversify forms of activities to protect and promote the value of cultural heritage, making love and sense of responsibility for cultural heritage increasingly spread and permeate throughout society” - Associate Professor, Dr. Do Van Tru emphasized.

Through the preliminary round, the Jury selected 100 works for the final round and from here continued to select the best works to award 1 First prize, 2 Second prizes, 3 Third prizes, 3 Youth prizes, 19 Encouragement prizes, with a total prize value of nearly 1 billion VND. This is the first year that the Youth prize category (reserved for students aged 6-22) has been included in the prize structure of the heritage painting competition, to encourage creative thinking and love of heritage of the young generation.

Delegates cut the ribbon to open the 2nd "Vietnam's Cultural Heritage through Painting" Painting Exhibition in 2025.

The first prize winner of the contest was the woodcut “Under the shadow of a thousand years” by author Le Phi Hung, a lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts. The author had been nurturing the idea for this work for a long time and spent 6 months to complete it to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the August Revolution and National Day September 2; the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South, the reunification of the country, and the 1087th anniversary of the Bach Dang Victory.

Two second prizes went to the copper engraving work “ Hue Tinh Khuc Tu Thoi” by Tran Thi Thanh Dung and the acrylic work on fabric “Preserving traditional cultural identity” by Truong Manh Sang.

On the same afternoon, at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, the Opening Ceremony of the Exhibition on the Painting Competition "Vietnam's Cultural Heritage through Painting" for the second time in 2025 took place, and at the same time, a book was launched introducing to the public 100 works that entered the Final Round of the competition.

This is an opportunity for the public to directly admire and feel the beauty of heritage expressed through the language of painting, thereby multiplying love as well as awareness of preserving and conserving the values of Vietnamese heritage.

Following the two seasons, the Vietnam Cultural Heritage Association plans to continue to coordinate with the Vietnam Cultural Heritage Conservation Support Fund to organize the 3rd "Vietnam Cultural Heritage through Painting" Painting Contest in 2026-2027 and move towards organizing the 4th Contest in 2028-2029, aiming to select 100 works about the Party, the revolution and Uncle Ho, practically celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Vietnam (February 3, 1930 - February 3, 2030).

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