Nguyen Phan Chanh was a schoolteacher in his homeland before entering the Hanoi School of Fine Arts (Ecole des Beaux-Arts des l'Indochine) in 1925. Upon its creation he was part of the first student intake.

He followed a curriculum similar to that offered at the School of Fine Arts in Paris while developing the artistic skills specific to local traditions. Encouraged by his teachers, he devoted himself to the technique of painting on silk. He soon established himself as one of the leading artists of this first graduating class.

In 1929, the painter and several classmates exhibited their work at the Grand Palais in Paris for the Salon d'art colonial. Victor Tardieu, founder of the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine and head of the French art section in Indochina, was later tasked with organizing the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition. Naturally, students from the school’s first intake, including Nguyễn Phan Chánh, were invited to participate. His work was a standout, making up a third of the section’s sales and receiving widespread acclaim from critics.

He became a lecturer at the École des beaux-arts de l'Indochine. In his work, the artist was inspired by the rural world in its deepest authen-ticity, choosing scenes from everyday life with an intimate, traditional vision. Marked by his early training, the influence of traditional literary calligraphy is perceptible in his compositions. He liked to use a dark palette of earthy colours such as brown, black and ochre, playing with highlights of white to create effects of light and shadow, thus creating a very personal atmosphere. In 1996 he was posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh prize for literature and art.