Nguyen Tu Nghiem liked to depict animals of the Chinese zodiac, among other themes. Here, the rooster reigns supreme as the epitomal Chanticleer, with its rainbow plumage and attractive red coxcomb. The rooster, for all its morning bugle call in days of agrarian economy and symbol of male libido, is also vain, and that can prove its downfall. Other times, Nguyen Tu Nghiem combined folklore and paeans of the countryside and ancient dance with the contemporary. Nguyen Tu Nghiem is revered in Vietnamese art as among the great quartet, with the others being Duong Bich Lien, Nguyen Sang and Bui Xuan Phai, whom he studied together at the Indo-China Fine Arts College between 1941-1946, the 15th intake under Joseph Inguimberty, To Ngoc Van and Nam Son, and his graduating was delayed when the Japanese ousted the French in March 1945. Like Phai, he won the Ho Chi Minh Prize for art in 1996, but for the politically persecuted Phai, it was posthumous. He was last of the quartet to have died, in 2016 (June 15) in Hanoi. Influenced by Nguyen Do Cung and To Ngoc Van, he won 1st Prize at the Salon Unique in 1944 for his Literature Temple Guard. He took part in the anti-French resistance war and land reforms in the early 1950s, and also taught art at the Viet Bac revolution base. He also taught at his alma mater and the Hanoi Industrial Fine Arts University.