|
B right Quang is an interesting and inspiring man. Idiosyncratic and personal, his painting describes his response to his life and shares with us a long, solitary view acquired in the midst of tragic world events of the past thirty years–war, displacement, and struggle.
Bright’s reply to all this is, rather than despair, hope. Bright’s work, and his character, celebrates what it means to be alive in difficult times.
Professor
Dickson Schneider
California State University Hayward
http://www.csuhayward.edu/
Presidents
I.George Washington’s term of the presidency went from 1789-1797, and was born in Virginia in 1732. He was the commanding general in the
Revolutionary War, and a strong uniting force for the new nation. He died in 1799.
II. I. Inspiration: Bright Quang was not born in the United States,
but when he came to this country. He was to be a Vietnamese American artist and recaptured his freedom of speech, democratic, and authorship. Therefore, he was a very much obligated to President George Washington because who was a father of the American people.
III. Materials: oil on canvas
IV. Size: 17½”. 19½
John Adams’s term of the presidency was from 1797-1801. President John
Adams was born in 1735, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He graduated as a Harvard-educated lawyer, and he early became identified with a patriotic origin, a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses. He was the forefront of the movement for independence. I was especially impressed by President John Adams because he was a great and moral leader in the revolution. I learned and thought about President John Adams who was more extraordinary as a political philosopher of life than as a politician. He said, “People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity,” and said, “doubtless thinking of his own as well as the American experience.” Mainly, I, around the clock, pray at the altar of God to wish President John Adams would come to life again and lead the American country, so my three million Vietnamese people could avoid their deaths when the American bombs took their lives in the Vietnam War with the United States. Significantly, when I was a Vietnamese sculptor, poet, and ex-political prisoner to return my mother country of America, it trained me to be a coolie in this modern country, but it did not pay me any salary when I worked with many American mental cases.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”. 28”
President Thomas Jefferson’s term of the presidency was from1801-1809. He was born in 1743 in Virginia. He was a creator of the Declaration of Independence of the United States. I liked President Thomas Jefferson because he was a great American leader who he did not want the American Army and Navy to spend. He cut their budget and eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet he reduced the national debt by a third. Although the Constitution made no condition for the acquisition of new land, President Thomas Jefferson held back his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803, in the thick of party conflict in 1800. I have learned and was impressed by President Thomas Jefferson because he created a letter. He wrote: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Significantly,if the American people kept his saying, in mind humankind in the world would be happy and peaceful.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”. 28”
 James
Madison’s term of the presidency was from1809-1817. He was born in 1751; he was a student of history and government and was well read in law. He participated in the framing of the Virginia Constitution in 1776 and served in the Continental Congress. He was a leader in the Virginia Assembly. In later years, when he was referred to as the Father of the Constitution, he protested that the document was not the offspring of a single brain, but the work of several heads and a lot of hands. Significantly, I thought President James Madison was an American hero when he displayed the Bill of Rights and passed the first revenue legislation out of his leadership, in opposition to Hamilton's financial proposals which he felt unduly bestowed wealth and power upon the northern financiers who came to the development of the Republic. President James Madison protested warring with France and Britain and that their seizure of American ships was contrary to international law. He was troubled when the British affected the War of 1812 when the British captured and burnt the American capital. Significantly, he declared, “The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.”
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”. 28”
 James
Monroe’s term of the presidency went from 1817-1825. Monroe was born
in 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and then he attended
William and Mary College, fought with distinction in the Continental
Army, and skillfully studied law in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His
manner was quiet and dignified from the frank, honest expression of
his eye. I think he well deserves the high praise passed upon him by
President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson said, “Monroe was so honest
that if you turned his soul inside out there would not be a spot on
it.”
President James Monroe undertook a goodwill tour. His visit at
Boston was hailed as the beginning of an Era of Good Feelings.
Unfortunately these good feelings did not endure, although President James Monroe’s popularity was undiminished and followed nationalist
policies.
His facade broke up nationalism during painful economic times. His depression undoubtedly increased and he brought dismay to the American people in the Missouri Territory in 1819 when their application for admission to the Union as a slave state failed. President James Monroe was the best leader because he amended a bill to gradually eliminate slavery in Missouri which was precipitated by two years of bitter debate in Congress.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”. 28”
John Quincy Adams’s term of
the presidency lasted from 1825-1829. He was born in 1767, in Braintree, Massachusetts State. When he was a young man, he observed
the Battle of Bunker Hill from the top of Penn's Hill above the family farm and analyzed the right and wrong of the battlefields.
After graduating from Harvard College, he became a lawyer when he was twenty-six years old. He was appointed Minister to the Netherlands, and then was promoted to the Berlin Legation. In 1802, he was elected to the United States Senate. Six years later
President Madison appointed him Minister to Russia.
President John Quincy Adams also urged the United States to take a lead in the development of the arts, sciences, and economics through the establishment of a national university, the financing of scientific expeditions, and the erection of an observatory. His critics declared such measures transcended constitutional
limitations. He spoke out against slavery in the United States because he respected the dignity of man.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Andrew Jackson’s term of the presidency was from1829-1837 and he was born in 1767, in a backwoods
settlement in the Carolinas. He received sporadic education. He returned to school in his late teens, studied law major for two years by himself, and became an excellent young lawyer in Tennessee. Fiercely jealous of his honor, he engaged in brawls, and in a duel killed a man who cast an unjustified slur on his wife Rachel. When he was a young man, at nine years old and thirteen years old, he joined the Continental Army as a messenger. The Revolution took a toll on the Jackson family. His family heard a cry for help from the nation, and then his family volunteered to save the nation. As a result, all three boys saw active service. One of Andrew's older brothers, Hugh, died in 1779 after the Battle of Steno Ferry, in South Carolina, and two years later Andrew and his other brother Robert were taken prisoner for a few weeks in April of 1781.
While his family members were captured by a British officer, the
British enemy ordered them to clean his boots. His family members refused and the British officer struck at them with his sword; Andrew's hand was cut to the bone. Because of his ill treatment Jackson harbored a bitter resentment towards the British until his death. Both brothers contracted smallpox during their imprisonment and Robert was dead within days of their release. Later that year
Betty Jackson went to Charleston to nurse American prisoners of war.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Martin Van Buren’s term of the
presidency was from 1837-1841 and he was born in 1782; he was a son
of a tavern keeper and farmer, in Kinderhook, New York. When Martin
Van Buren became an American president, he was troubled by the nineteenth-century cyclical economy which was broken up. Jackson's
financial measures contributed to the crash; he destroyed the Second
Bank of the United States, removed restrictions upon the inflationary practices of some state banks, stopped wild speculation in land, and based the economy on easy bank credit. President Martin Van Buren had swept the West. On the other hand, President Martin Van Buren dressed fastidiously and his impeccable appearance belied his amiability—and his humble background. As a young lawyer, he became involved in New York politics. As a leader of the Albany Regency, an effective New York political organization, he shrewdly
dispensed public offices and bounty in a fashion calculated to bring
votes. He faithfully fulfilled official duties, and in the year of
1821 he was elected to the United States Senate by the people of New
York.
President Martin Van Buren led the American nation, tried not lose
jobs, closed the banks, and let the American workers meet a difficult livelihood and looked like an unskillful father who was unable to lead his family. The American economy rose and fell when its leader was an unskillful man because the economy looked like a ladder; we had been using it to pick up tree fruits.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
William Henry Harrison’s term
of the presidency began 1841. He was born in 1773, in Berkeley,
Virginia. He studied classics and history at Hampden-Sydney College,
and then he began the study of medicine in Richmond. In the War of
1812, President William Henry Harrison found victory and more
soldier glories when he was given the command of the American army
in the Northwest with the rank of brigadier general. At the battle
of the Thames, north of Lake Erie, on October 5, 1813, he expelled
the combined British and Indian forces, and killed Tecumseh.
President William Henry Harrison was in fact a scion of the Virginia
planter aristocracy. Suddenly, in the year 1791, Harrison switched
interests. He obtained a commission as ensign in the First Infantry
of the Regular Army, and he headed to the Northwest where he
dedicated so much of his life. When he arrived in the White House in
February of 1841, President William Henry Harrison let Daniel
Webster edit his inaugural address and over elaborate it with
classical allusions. Webster obtained some deletions and boasted in
a jolly fashion that he had killed “seventeen Roman proconsuls as
dead as smelts, every one of them.” But before he had been in office
a month, Harrison caught a cold that developed into pneumonia. On
April 4, 1841, he was the first president to die in office. .
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
President John Tyler’s term of
the presidency was from 1841-1845 and he was born in 1790, in
Virginia. He attended the College of William and Mary to study law.
When he was serving in the House of Representatives from 1816 to
1821, John Tyler voted against most nationalist legislation and
opposed the Missouri Compromise. After leaving the House, John Tyler
became a two-term governor in Virginia. When he became a senator, he
reluctantly supported Jackson for president as a lesser choice of
evils. John Tyler rapidly joined the states' rights southerners in
Congress who banded with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and their
newly-formed Whig party that opposed President Jackson.
Suddenly, President Harrison was dead, so Mr. John Tyler became an
American president. At first the Whigs were not too disturbed.
Although President Tyler insisted upon assuming the full of powers
of a duly-elected president, he even delivered an inaugural address,
but it seemed full of Whig doctrine; the Whigs were optimistic that
President Tyler would accept their program.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
James K. Polk’s term of the
presidency lasted from 1845-1849. Polk was born in 1795, in
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Polk was studious and
industrious. He graduated with honors in 1818 from the University of
North Carolina. Polk was a young lawyer, and he entered politics and
served in the Tennessee legislature. Andrew Jackson and he were
close friends. In the American Congress, Polk was a chief lieutenant
of Jackson in his bank war. Polk served as a speaker between the
years of 1835 and 1839 and left to become governor of Tennessee.
President Polk added a vast area to the United States, but its
acquisition precipitated a bitter fight between the North and South
over expansion of slavery.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Zachary Taylor’s term of the
presidency went from 1849-1850. He was born in 1784, in Virginia.
When growing up, he was taken as an infant to Kentucky. He grew up
on a plantation. He was a good officer in the Army, but he talked
most often with eloquence. His home was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
He owned a plantation in Mississippi. Taylor did not defend slavery
or southern sectionalism; his forty years in the American Army made
him a strong nationalist, and he dedicated his life to his nation
and people. He spent a quarter of a century policing the frontiers
against Indians. He won major victories at Monterrey and Buena Vista
during the Mexican War with the United States.
He owned one hundred slaves, and he would lure Southern votes. He
had not committed himself on troublesome issues. Zachary Taylor
protested against sectionalism because he was a slaveholder of
squatter sovereignty. Northerners who opposed extension of slavery
into territories formed a Free Soil Party and nominated Martin Van
Buren. Near Election Day, the Free Soldiers pulled enough votes away
to elect Taylor. Traditionally, the American people could decide
whether they wanted slavery and drew up new state constitutions.
Therefore, to end the dispute over slavery in new areas, Southerners
were furious, since neither state’s constitution was likely to
permit slavery. In addition, Taylor's solution ignored several acute
side issues including the Northerners dislike of the slave market
operating in the District of Columbia, and the Southerners demand
for a more stringent fugitive slave law.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Millard Fillmore’s term of the
presidency was from 1850-1853. He was born in 1800, in the Finger
Lakes area of New York. Millard Fillmore was a youth who endured the
privations of frontier life. He worked on his father's farm. When he
was fifteen years old, he apprenticed to a cloth dresser. He
attended one-room schools, and he fell in love with a schoolgirl
named Abigail Powers. She was a redheaded teacher, and she became
his wife. Millard Fillmore was a chair in the Senate during the
months of nerve-wracking debate over the Compromise of 1850.
Fillmore made no public comment on the merits of the compromise
proposals, but a few days before President Taylor's death, Fillmore
intimated to him that if there should be a tie vote on Henry Clay's
bill, he would vote in favor of it. Fillmore signed a bill to admit
California into the United States, and he still aroused all of the
violent arguments for and protested against the extension of
slavery, without any progress toward settling the major issues.
President Fillmore announced in favor of the Compromise. On August
6, 1860, he sent a message to Congress, and he recommended that
Texas be paid to abandon her claims to part of New Mexico.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Franklin Pierce’s term of the
presidency went from1853-1857 and he was born in 1804, in
Hillsborough, New Hampshire. Franklin Pierce attended Bowdon
College. After graduating he studied law, and then he entered
politics. When he was twenty-four years old, he was elected to the
New Hampshire legislature. He became a speaker two years later. In
the 1830's he went to Washington D.C. He first was elected
Representative, and then he became a Senator. At the time Pierce
became an American president, the United States was a peaceful
society because the Mexican War was finished while he had performed
government services. He was proposed by New Hampshire friends for
the presidential nomination in 1852.
Painfully, before taking office for two months, he and his wife saw
their eleven-year-old son killed when their train was wrecked.
Pierce entered a presidency nervously exhausted. Meanwhile, he
became an American president and signed a new law that let settlers
decide on slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. This increased problems
between the North and South. Unluckily, his bills allowed the new
territories’ residents to decide the slavery question for them. This
effect was a rush into Kansas for a buildup of the Southerners and
Northerners who struggled to control the territory. Shots broke out
and became a prelude to the Civil War. Significantly, Pierce
declared with the American people that this was an age of peace and
prosperity of the United States. We, the American people, should
make relations with other nations and the United States might have
to acquire additional possessions for the sake of its own security.
Kindly, Franklin Pierce opened a new road to lead the American
people when he said, “We would not be deterred by any timid
forebodings of evil.”
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
James Buchanan’s term of the
presidency lasted from 1857-1861, and he was born in 1791 into a
well-to-do family in Pennsylvania; he graduated from Dickinson
College. He was gifted as a debater who studied law. Buchanan never
married.
Unfortunately, President Buchanan presided over a rapidly-dividing
country when Buchanan inadequately grasped the political realities
of the time. However, he relied on Constitutional doctrines to close
the widespread rift over slavery; he was unsuccessful to realize
that the North would not accept Constitutional arguments which
favored the South. He could not realize how sectionalism had
realigned political parties: the Democrats split and the Whigs were
destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans.
Thus, in his inaugural, President Buchanan referred to the
territorial question as “happily, a matter of but little practical
importance” since the Supreme Court was about to settle it “speedily
and finally.”
President Buchanan decided to end the troubles in Kansas by urging
the admission of the territory as a slave state. Although President
Buchanan was authorized to decide this goal, he further angered the
Republicans and alienated members of his own party. Kansas remained
a territory.
Sectional strife rose to such a pitch in 1860 that the Democratic
Party split into Northern and Southern wings, each nominating its
own candidate for the presidency. Consequently, when the Republicans
nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a foregone conclusion that he
would be elected even though his name appeared on no southern
ballot. Rather than accept a Republican administration, the
Southerners were fire-eaters who advocate secession.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Abraham Lincoln’s term of the
presidency was from 1861-1865; he introduced his background and
proudly said, “I was born on February 12, 1809, in Hardin County,
Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished
families—second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died
in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father
... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It
was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in
the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did
not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ...
but that was all.” President Abraham Lincoln warned the South in his
inaugural address: “In your hands, my dis satisfactory fellow
countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered
in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most
solemn: one to preserve, protect and defend it.”
Significantly, President Lincoln did not like the lost solidarity,
but he was willing to use his force to defend federal law and the
Union. When he would call on solidarity of the Confederate States of
America, the American people met his wishes and had seventy-five
thousand volunteers of the states and four more slave states joining
the Confederacy, with four states standing with the Union. The Civil
War had begun.
As president, he built the Republican Party into a strong national
organization. Further, he consolidated most all of the Northern
Democrats to the Union foundation. On January 1, 1863, he issued the
Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves
within the Confederacy; he would win the hearts of the American
people and he became a great emancipator.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Andrew Johnson’s term of the
presidency lasted from 1865-1869; he was born in 1808, in Raleigh,
North Carolina. Johnson was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch. He
apprenticed to a tailor; after that, he opened a tailor shop in
Greenville, Tennessee. He married with Eliza McCardle and
participated in debates at the local academy. Even if an honest and
honorable man, President Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of
presidents. He was arrayed against the Radical Republicans in
Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics because
Johnson was no match for them. Strongly, he and Congress skirmished
over how state government should be restored in the South. Congress
tried to remove him form the White House, but did not succeed.
During the secession calamity, Johnson remained in the Senate even
when Tennessee seceded, which made him a hero in the North and a
traitor in the eyes of most Southerners. Before he became an
American president, in 1862, President Lincoln appointed him
Military Governor of Tennessee, so Johnson used this state as a
laboratory for reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans contended
with him that their National Union Party was for all loyal men,
nominated Johnson, the Southerner and the Democrat, for Vice
President. After Lincoln's death, President Johnson proceeded to
reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in
session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take an oath of
allegiance, but he required leaders and men of wealth to obtain
special presidential pardons.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Ulysses S. Grant’s term of
the presidency went for 1869-1877; Grant was born in 1822. His
father was a tanner in Ohio. President Grant went to West Point
against his will, and he finished in the middle of his class. He was
an American hero in the Mexican War when he fought under General
Zachary Taylor. Once he was a Civil War hero, an American president
when blacks were given voting rights. He gave important jobs to
people who were dishonest. When the Civil War broke out in the
South, President Grant was working in his father's leather store in
Galena, Illinois. He was appointed by the governor to command an
unruly volunteer regiment. President Ulysses S. Grant whisked it
into character by September of 1861 and had risen to the rank of
brigadier general of volunteers. At Shiloh in April, President
Ulysses S. Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in the West and
came out less well. President Lincoln fended off demands for his
removal by saying, "I can't spare this man--he fights."
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Rutherford B. Hayes’s term of
the presidency lasted from 1877-1881, and he was born in 1822 in
Ohio. President Hayes was educated at Kenyon College and Harvard Law
School when he was a young man. After five years of law practice in
Lower Sandusky, he moved to Cincinnati where he flourished as a
young Whig lawyer. He was a recipient of the most eloquent disputed
election in American history because Hayes brought to the executive
mansion dignity, honesty, and moderate reform.
He was fighting in the Civil War, but he was wounded in action. He
rose to the rank of brevet major general. While he was still in the
Army, Cincinnati Republicans appointed him to the House of
Representatives, and he accepted the nomination, but he would not
campaign. He said, “an officer fit for duty who at this crisis would
abandon his post to electioneer... ought to be scalped.” George
Washington’s term of the presidency went from 1789-1797, and was
born in Virginia in 1732. He was the commanding general in the
Revolutionary War, and a strong uniting force for the new nation. He
died in 1799.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
James A. Garfield’s term of
the presidency began in1881. He was born in 1831, in Cuyahoga
County, Ohio, and was fatherless when he was two years old. When was
a young man, he drove canal boat teams, and somehow earned enough
money to get an education. He was graduated from Williams College in
Massachusetts in 1856, and he returned to the Western Reserve
Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) in Ohio to become a
classics professor. He was become an American president within a
year. Garfield attacked political corruption and won back for the
Presidency a measure of prestige it had lost during the
Reconstruction period.
President Garfield became a senator in 1859 in Ohio when he was a
Republican. During the secession crisis, he advocated to coerce
secede the states back into the Union. In 1862, when Union military
victories had been few, he successfully led a brigade at Middle
Creek, Kentucky, against Confederate troops. Garfield became a
brigadier general after two years; later he became a major general
of volunteers.
He tried to bring about government reforms, but the American
Congress opposed him. On September 19, 1881, he died from an
infection and internal hemorrhage from a disappointed job seeker who
shot him while he seemed to be recuperating for a few days. Charles
Guiteau, the shooter, was about to board a train at the Baltimore &
Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22.”28”
Chester A. Arthur’s term of
the presidency went from 1881-1885, and he was born in 1829, in
Fairfield, Vermont. In 1848, he graduated from Union College, taught
school, and practiced law in New York City, where he was admitted to
the bar. He served as Quartermaster General of the State of New York
early in the Civil War. His personal appearance was dignified, tall,
and handsome, with clean-shaven chin and side-whiskers, Arthur
“looked like a formal President.”
As part of the acting’s independent party’s dogma, Arthur also tried
to lower tariff rates. The government would not be embarrassed by
annual surpluses of revenue. The Arthur administration enacted the
first general federal immigration law. President Arthur approved a
measure in 1882 excluding paupers, criminals, and lunatics.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Grover Cleveland’s terms of
the presidency were from1885 -1889 and 1893- 897. He was born in
1837 in New Jersey. He was one of nine children of a Presbyterian
minister. Grover Cleveland earned a bachelor’s degree and became a
lawyer in Buffalo. He became notable for his single-minded
concentration upon whatever task faced him. He was raised in upstate
New York. Moreover, Cleveland was ill at ease at first with all the
comforts of the White House. “I must go to dinner,” he wrote a
friend, “but I wish it was to eat a pickled herring, a Swiss cheese,
and a chop at Louis' instead of the French stuff I shall find.”
Cleveland got married when he was twenty-one years old with Frances
Folsom; he was the only president married in the White House. He
especially tried to help farmers and factory workers. He signed to
pass a law to control interstate trade.
After the Civil War was done, Grover Cleveland, in the first
democratic election, was elected president by the American voters.
He was the only president to leave the White House, and he was
elected to return to the White House for a second term four years
later.
He also vetoed many private pension bills of Civil War veterans
whose claims were fraudulent. When Congress, pressured by the Grand
Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for
disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland vetoed it,
too.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Benjamin Harrison’s term of
the presidency went from 1889-1893. He was born in 1833 on a farm by
the Ohio River below Cincinnati, and he attended at Miami University
in Ohio. He graduated with a law degree in Cincinnati. He moved to
Indianapolis, where he practiced law and campaigned for the
Republican Party; he married Caroline Scott Lavinia in 1853. After
the Civil War ended, he was colonel of the 70th Volunteer Infantry.
He became a pillar of Indianapolis and improved his reputation as a
brilliant lawyer.
Benjamin Harrison was nominated as an American president in 1889 by
the Republican Party. Harrison received 100,000 fewer popular votes
than Cleveland, but he carried the Electoral College at 233 votes to
168. Although Harrison had made no political bargains, his
supporters had given innumerable pledges his behalf. Harrison was
proud of the vigorous foreign policy which he helped shape. He
convinced the first Pan-American Congress to meet in Washington D.C
in 1889 and established an information center which later became the
Pan American Union; Harrison submitted to the Senate a treaty to
annex Hawaii at the end of his administration, but he was
disappointed when President Cleveland later withdrew it.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
William McKinley’s term of the
presidency lasted from 1897-1901, and he was born in 1843, in Niles,
Ohio. McKinley shortly enrolled at Allegheny College. He was
teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. He was
mustered out at the end of the war, so he was brevetted a major of
volunteers, enlisting as a private in the Union Army. He studied
law, opened an office in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, the
daughter of a local banker.
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Theodore Roosevelt’s term of
the presidency was from 1901-1909, and he was born in 1858 in New
York City. He came from a wealthy family, but he also struggled
against ill health. His triumph became an advocate of the strenuous
life. In 1884 his first wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt, and his mother
died on the same day. Roosevelt spent much of the next two years on
his ranch in the Badlands of Dakota Territory. There he mastered his
sorrow. Significantly, he was living in a saddle, driving cattle,
hunting big game, and he even captured an outlaw. When he traveled
to London, he married Edith Carow in December of 1886. When
President McKinley was assassinated by a criminal shooter, Theodore
Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the youngest president in American
history. He brought new excitement and power to the presidency, and
he vigorously led Congress and the American public toward
progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
William Howard Taft’s term of
the presidency went from 1909-1913. He was born in 1857, and he was
a son of a distinguished judge, was graduated from Yale University,
and returned to Cincinnati to study and practice law. He rose in
politics through Republican judiciary appointments and through his
own competence and availability. He once wrote a facetious book; he
always had his plate the right side up when offices were falling.
Taft, free of the presidency, served as professor of Law at Yale
until President Harding made him Chief Justice of the United States,
a position he held until just before his death in 1930. To Taft, the
appointment was his greatest honor; he wrote: “I don't remember that
I ever was president.”
Taft much preferred law to politics; he was appointed a federal
circuit judge when he was thirty-three years old. He aspired to be a
member of the Supreme Court, but his wife, Helen Herron Taft, held
other ambitions for him. He was a distinguished jurist and effective
administrator, but he was a poor politician. President Roosevelt
made him Secretary of War, and by 1907 had decided that Taft should
be his successor. The Republican convention nominated him the next
year.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Woodrow Wilson’s term of the
presidency lasted from 1913-1921. He was born in 1856 in Virginia.
He was a son of a Presbyterian minister who was a pastor in Augusta,
Georgia, when the Civil War began in the United States and worked
during Reconstruction as a professor in the charred city of
Columbia, South Carolina. Next, after graduating from Princeton
College of New Jersey and the University of Virginia Law School,
Woodrow Wilson earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and
entered upon an academic career. Woodrow Wilson advanced rapidly as
a traditional young professor of political science and became
president of Princeton University in 1902. Like Roosevelt before
him.
Wilson regarded himself as the personal representative of the
people. “No one but the president.” he said, “Seems to be expected
... to look out for the general interests of the country.” He
developed a program of progressive reform and asserted international
leadership in building a new world. He married Ellen Louise Axon in
1885. Finally, Wilson was an American president during World War I.
After the world war was over; he called for a League of Nations to
resolve differences of opinion. In 1917, he proclaimed America’s
entrance into World War I, and he made a crusade to the world to
make it safe for democracy, because Woodrow had seen the
frightfulness of war.
He was nominated for president in 1912 by the Democratic convention
and campaign program. He called for a New Freedom, which stressed
individualism and states' rights. He received only forty-two percent
of the popular vote in the three-way election, but received
overwhelming electoral vote.
He declared that his first task was a lower tariff. He signed the
Underwood Act; attached to the measure was a graduated federal
income tax. The passage of the Federal Reserve Act provided the
nation with the more elastic money supply it badly needed. In 1914
antitrust legislation established a Federal Trade Commission to
prohibit unfair business practices.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Warren G. Harding’s term of
the presidency went from went from 1921-1923, and he was born in
1865 near Marion, Ohio; he became the publisher of a newspaper. He
got married with a divorce, Mrs. Florence King De Wolfe. He was a
trustee of the Trinity Baptist Church, director of almost every
important business, and leader in fraternal organizations and
charitable enterprises. Next, he organized the Citizen's Cornet Band
and was available for both Republican and Democratic rallies. He
said; “I played every instrument but the slide trombone and the
E-flat cornet.” Finally, he once remarked before his nomination,
“America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums,
but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but
adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the
dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in
internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality....”
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Calvin Coolidge’s term of the
presidency was from 1923-1929, and he was born on July 4, 1872, in
Plymouth, Vermont; President Coolidge was a son of a village
storekeeper. He graduated from Amherst College with honors, and
entered law and politics in Northampton, Massachusetts. Gradually
and methodically, he went up the political ladder from councilman in
Northampton to governor of Massachusetts and he was a Republican.
When President Harding was suddenly dead in San Francisco on the
morning of August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge was visiting in Vermont,
and he rapidly received word that he became president at 2:30 p.m.
on August 3, 1923. By the light of a kerosene lamp, his father, a
notary public, administered the oath of office as Coolidge placed
his hand on the family Bible. His first message to Congress in
December 1923 called for isolation in foreign policy, for tax cuts,
economy, and limited aid to farmers. He and his wife had dry Yankee
wit and his frugality with words became legendary. His wife’s name
was Grace Goodhue Coolidge. She recounted that a young woman sitting
next to Coolidge at a dinner party confided to him she had bet she
could get at least three words of conversation from him. Without
looking at her he quietly retorted, “You lose.” In 1928, while
vacationing in the Black Hills of South Dakota, he issued the most
famous of his laconic statements, “I do not choose to run for
president in 1928.” Before his death in January of 1933, he confided
to an old friend, “I feel I no longer fit in with these times.”
. Materials: oil on
canvas
Size:22".28”
Herbert Hoover’s term of the
presidency lasted from 1929-1933; he was born in 1874 in an Iowa
village, and he grew up in Oregon. He enrolled at Stanford
University when it opened in 1891, and he graduated as a mining
engineer. He married his Stanford sweetheart, Lou Henry, and they
went to China, where he worked for a private corporation as China's
leading engineer. In June of 1900 the Boxer Rebellion caught the
Hoovers in Tientsin. For almost a month the settlement was under
heavy fire. After the United States entered the war, President
Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover head of the Food Administration. He
succeeded in cutting consumption of foods needed overseas and
avoided rationing at home, yet he kept the allies fed. While his
wife worked in the hospitals, Herbert Hoover directed the building
of barricades, and once risked his life rescuing Chinese children.
He was a son of a Quaker blacksmith; Hoover brought to the
presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an
engineer, administrator, and humanitarian. He organized his fortieth
birthday in London when Germany declared war with France and the
American Consul General asked Hoover’s help in getting stranded
tourists home. After six weeks had gone by Hoover’s committee helped
one hundred twenty thousand Americans to return to the United
States. He turned to a far more difficult commission; he fed Belgium
which had been swamped by the German army. Significantly, he said,
“We, in America today, are nearer to the final triumph over poverty
than ever before in the history of any land.” After the banks and
businesses failed, millions of American workers lost their jobs, so
President Hoover had to keep the federal budget balanced; he cut
taxes and expanded public works spending.
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s term
of the presidency was from 1933-1945, and he was born in 1882 at
Hyde Park, New York—now a national historic site and he attended
Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day he
got married Eleanor Roosevelt in 1905. Significantly, Franklin D.
Roosevelt entered public service through politics, and he was a
Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President
Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the
Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920. He assumed a
monumental presidency in the depths of the Great Depression because
World War II was occurring. President Roosevelt helped the American
people regain faith themselves. He brought hope as he promised
prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his inaugural address, he
said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
 Harry
S. Truman’s term of the presidency lasted from 1945-1953. Truman was
born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884. He grew up in independence, and
for twelve years prospered as a Missouri farmer. He went to France
during World War I as a captain in the Field Artillery. After he
returned to the United States, he married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace
and opened a haberdashery in Kansas City. He was active in the
Democratic Party. Truman was elected as a judge of the Jackson
County Court in 1922. He became a Senator in 1934. When World War II
was raging, he headed a Senate investigation committee to check into
waste and corruption and save perhaps as much as fifteen billion
dollars. For the duration of his few weeks as a Vice-President,
Truman scarcely saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on
the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties
with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime
problems became Truman's to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became
president. He told reporters, “I felt like the moon, the stars, and
all the planets had fallen on me.”
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s term of
the presidency was from 1953-1961, and he was born in 1890 in Texas;
he was brought up in Abilene, Kansas, and President Eisenhower was
the third of seven sons. He excelled in sports in high school, and
received an appointment to West Point. He stationed in Texas and was
a second lieutenant. He met Mamie Geneva Doud and married with her
in 1916. After that, he was the president his prestige and
commanding general of the victorious forces in Europe during World
War II. President Eisenhower obtained a truce in Korea and worked
incessantly during his two terms on the straightforwardness and
tensions of the Cold War. He pursued the moderate policies of Modern
Republicanism and pointed out as he left office, “America is today
the strongest, most influential, and most productive nation in the
world.”
First, Dwight D. Eisenhower built to negotiate from military
strength. He tried to reduce the strains of the Cold War. In 1953,
he signed an armistice and brought again an armed peace along the
border of South Korea. At this time, the Stalin’s death in the same
year caused shifts in relations with Russia. Second, when new
Russian leaders consented to a peace treaty the neutralizing
Austria, both the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United
States had developed hydrogen bombs. With the danger of such
destructive force hanging over the world, President Eisenhower and
the leaders of the British, French, and Russian governments met in
Geneva in July of 1955. As a result, President Eisenhower wished
that the United States and Russia exchange blueprints of each
other's military establishments and “provide within our countries
facilities for aerial photography to the other country.” The
Russians greeted the proposal with silence, but were so cordial
throughout the meetings that tensions relaxed. Third, President
Eisenhower’s domestic policy pursued a middle course, continued most
of the New Deal and Fair Deal programs, and emphasized a balanced
budget. As desegregation of schools began, he sent troops into
Little Rock, Arkansas, to assure compliance with the orders of a
federal court; he also ordered the complete desegregation of the
Armed Forces. He said, “There must be no second-class citizens in
this country.”
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
John F. Kennedy’s term of the
presidency was from 1961-1963. He was born in May 29, 1917, in
Brookline, Massachusetts, and he graduated from Harvard University
in 1940 and entered the Navy. In 1943, when his warship was rammed
and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, President Kennedy led the
survivors through perilous waters to safety. Next, he returned from
the war, became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, and
advanced to the Senate in 1953. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on
September 12, 1953. While he was recuperating from a back operation,
he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in
history; he became a great writer in 1955. Unfortunately, President
Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic president on November 22,
1963, when he had hardly passed his first thousand days in office.
President Kennedy was assassinated as his motorcade wound through
Dallas, Texas. John F. Kennedy, the youngest, was elected president;
he was the youngest to die. Finally, his inaugural address offered
the memorable injunction; he said, “Ask not what your country can do
for you—ask what you can do for your country.” As for him, President
Kennedy set out to redeem his campaign pledge to get America moving
again. He organized the best of economic programs, and he started
the country on its longest sustained expansion since World War II.
Before his death, he laid plans for a massive assault to eliminate
pockets of privation and poverty. He wished the United States of
America to pick up where it left off its old assignment that a first
nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights, and the American
people would keep with their Alliance for Progress and the Peace
Corps. He was a creator to bring American idealism to the aid of
developing nations. He realized that the hard reality of the
Communists challenge remained; the international Communists had been
threatening the peaceful world.
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Lyndon B. Johnson’s term of
the presidency went from 1963-1969, and he was born on August 27,
1908, in central Texas, not far from Johnson City where his family
settled. He felt the pinch of rural poverty when he grew up, worked
his path from beginning to end in Southwest Texas and attended
Teacher College. Second, he elicited sympathy for the poverty of
others when he taught Mexican students in descent. In 1937, he
campaigned successfully for the House of Representatives on a New
Deal platform, effectively aided by his wife who was the former
Claudia “Lady Bird” Taylor. When Taylor married Claudia in 1934,
Lyndon B. Johnson became a great society for the American people.
Fellow men elsewhere were the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. Third, in
the first years of his office, he obtained passage of one of the
most extensive legislative programs in the nation's history.
President Johnson maintained collective security; he carried on the
rapidly-growing struggle to restrain Communist encroachment in
Vietnam. Then, he obtained enacting clauses of the procedures
President Kennedy had been urging at the time of his death, for
example, a new civil rights bill and a tax cut. Next, he advocated
the United States to build a great society, a position where the
significance of human life went with the spectacle of human labor.
Later, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society program became Johnson's
schema in the American Congress in January of 1965. For example, aid
to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal,
beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a
wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime
and delinquency, and removal of obstacles to the right to vote. In
the end, the American Congress, at times augmenting or amending,
rapidly enacted Johnson's recommendations. Millions of elderly
people found succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the
Social Security Act. Finally, the outcome was crisis arising from
Vietnam. Despite Johnson's efforts to end Communist aggression and
achieve a settlement, fighting continued. Controversy over the war
had become acute by the end of March 1968, when he limited the
bombing of North Vietnam in order to initiate negotiations. At the
same time, he startled the world by withdrawing as a candidate for
re-election so that he might devote his full efforts, unimpeded by
politics, to seek for peace.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Richard M. Nixon’s term of the
presidency went from 1969-1974. Nixon was born in 1913 in
California, and President Nixon had a brilliant record at Whittier
College and Duke University Law School before he began the practice
of law. He married Patricia Ryan in 1940, and they had two
daughters. During World War II, Nixon was a Navy lieutenant
commander in the Pacific. As President Nixon had promised, he
appointed justices of conservative philosophy to the Supreme Court,
one of the most theatrical procedures of his first term that
occurred in 1969. President Nixon had played a hilarious musical
chairs game in the Vietnam War before he improved relations with the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and China. Some of his most
acclaimed achievements came in his mission for world stability. When
he visited Beijing and Moscow in 1972, he reduced tensions with
China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. His summit
conferences met with Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev, and they
produced a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons. In January of
1973, he announced an accord with North Vietnam to end American
involvement in Indochina when his Secretary of State, Henry
Kissinger, signed a treaty peace for Vietnam in Paris, France.
However, the Watergate scandal caused great destruction of his life
and fame; only within a few months, his administration was embattled
over the “Watergate” scandal.
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
 Gerald
R. Ford’s term of the presidency was from 1974-1977. Ford was born
in 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska; he grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He starred on the University of Michigan football team, and then
went to Yale where he served as assistant coach while he earned his
law degree. During World War II he attained the rank of lieutenant
commander in the Navy; after the war, he returned to Grand Rapids
where he began the practice of law, and entered Republican politics.
A few weeks before his election to Congress in 1948, he married
Elizabeth Bloomer. They have four children. President Ford never won
a national election. While he was president, prices rose and many
American people had no jobs; he struggled to win the hearts of the
American people because the public Americans were unfaithful in
government. Former President Nixon betrayed the American people and
the people in the world, and he made them lose confidence in
politicians. When Ford took the oath of office on August 9, 1974, he
declared, “I assume the presidency under extraordinary
circumstances.... This is an hour of history that troubles our minds
and hurts our hearts.”
As for the American president, Ford tried to calm earlier arguments
and granted former President Nixon a full pardon. When President
Ford set up his policies during his first year in office, he was
confronted with opposition from a heavily-Democratic Congress. His
first goal was to help the American society, so he curbed inflation
after the Vietnam War.
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Jimmy Carter’s term of the
presidency was from 1977-1981, and he was born October 1, 1924, in
Plains, Georgia. His full name is James Earl Carter, Jr. He came
from peanut farming, talk of politics, and devotion to the Baptist
faith. He graduated in 1946 from the Naval Academy in Annapolis,
Maryland. President Carter married Rosalyn Smith.
President Carter announced his candidacy for president in December
of 1974 and began a two-year campaign that gradually gained
momentum. At the Democratic Convention, he was nominated on the
first ballot. He chose Senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota as his
running mate. Carter campaigned hard against President Ford,
debating with him three times. President Carter won by 297 electoral
votes to 241 for former President Ford.
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Ronald Wilson Reagan’s
term of the presidency went from 1981-1989. Reagan was born on
February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois. He attended high school in
nearby Dixon and then worked his way through Eureka College. He was
the second son of Jack and Nelle Reagan. He had a difficult
childhood. His father was an itinerant shoe salesman and an
alcoholic. In school, his undiagnosed nearsightedness held him back
until a writing teacher named B. J. Frazier brought out the boy's
native talent. There he studied economics and sociology, played on
the football team, and acted in school plays. When he graduated, he
became a radio sports announcer. Screen tests in 1937 won him a
contract in Hollywood. During the next two decades he appeared in
fifty-three films. At the end of his two terms in office, Ronald
Reagan viewed with satisfaction the achievements of his innovative
program known as the Reagan Revolution, which aimed to reinvigorate
the American people and reduce their reliance upon government. He
felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore “The
great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism.”
He combined his own brand of humor and optimism. The caption beneath
his high school yearbook picture read, “Life is just one grand sweet
song, so start the music.”
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
George H. W. Bush’s term
of the presidency lasted from 1989-1993. He was born in June 12,
1924, in Milton, Massachusetts; he turned his energies toward
completing his education and raised a family. In January 1945 he
married Barbara Pierce. They had six children—George, Robin, John,
Neil, Marvin, and Dorothy. At Yale University he excelled both in
sports and in his studies; he was captain of the baseball team and a
member of Phi Beta Kappa. After graduating he embarked on a career
in the oil industry of West Texas, and he became a student leader at
Phillips Academy in Andover. When he turned his eighteenth birthday
and enlisted in the armed forces. He was the youngest American pilot
in the Navy when he received his wings. He flew fifty-eight combat
missions during World War II. On one of many missions he was over
the Pacific as a torpedo bomber for his pilot. He was shot down by
Japanese antiaircraft fire, rescued from the water by an American
submarine, and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in
action.
George H. W. Bush brought to the White House a dedication to
traditional American values and a determination to direct them
toward making the United States, “A kinder and gentler nation.” In
his inaugural address he pledged in a moment rich with promise to
use American strength as a force for good. In particular, George
Bush came from a family tradition of public service and felt the
responsibility to make his contribution both in times of war and
peace. Moreover, his ancestor came from an aristocratic family.
Prescott Bush’s father was elected an American Senator from the
state of Connecticut in 1952; his father became interested in public
service and politics. He served two terms as a Representative to
Congress from Texas.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Bill Clinton’s term of the
presidency lasted from 1993- 2001. He was born on August 19, 1946,
as William Jefferson Blythe IV, in Hope, Arkansas. Clinton’s father
died in a traffic accident when he was four years old. His mother
wed Roger Clinton in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In high school, he took
the family name. He was an outstanding student. He played a
saxophone very well and considered becoming a professional musician.
As a delegate to Boys Nation while in high school, he met President
Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden. The encounter led him to
enter a life of public service. Clinton graduated from Georgetown
University in 1968 and he won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford
University. He received a law degree from Yale University in 1973
and entered politics in Arkansas. He was defeated in his campaign
for Congress in Arkansas's Third District in 1974. The next year he
married Hillary Rodham, she graduated from Wellesley College and
Yale Law School. In 1980, their child was Chelsea.
. Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
George W. Bush’s term of
the presidency lasted from 2001-2008. He was born on July 6, 1946,
in New Haven, Connecticut; he grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas.
He received a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1968, and
then served as an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National
Guard. President Bush received a Master of Business Administration
from Harvard Business School in 1975. After graduating, he moved
back to Midland and began a career in the energy business. After
working on his father's successful 1988 presidential campaign, he
assembled the group of partners that purchased the Texas Rangers
baseball franchise in 1989. President Bush is married to Laura Welch
Bush, a former teacher and librarian, and they have twin daughters,
Barbara and Jenna.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Barack Obama's term of 2009-2012
I. Barack Obama’s 44th of the United States, he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama's mother, Ann Dunham Ann, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton's army. Dunham's mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii.
II. I. Inspiration: Bright Quang was not born in the United States, but when he came to this country. He is to be a Vietnamese American artist, writer and poet— recapturing his freedom of speech, democratic, and authorship. Therefore, he is a very much obligated to President Barack Hussein Obama because who is the best President of the American people and will bring the honor back for the United States of America when her USA seemed to lost honor in the past.
III. Materials: oil on canvas
IV. Size: 22"x 28"
Portrait of Anna Trang Nguyễn
in 2007
I.Inspiration: She came from a family educator of the Nguyễn in Saigon City, Vietnam.She came to Australia in July 25, 1987, earned Bachelor Degree in 1996, in West Australia,Australia, and was the best of Vietnamese woman. Artist Bright Quang painted her portrait in order to adore and to respect his loved art because she is a beautiful and talent Vietnamese Australian girl.
II. Materials: oil on canvas, liquid, and acrylic
III. Size: 22”. 28”
Playfulness's 2003
Inspiration: As a youth, Bright Quang loved music. War robbed him of the opportunity to pursue this interest. When he came to the United States, he dreamed of playing music. After practicing the trombone for two years, he had to put it away because to the demands of earning a living. Nevertheless, he still finds an occasional moment to pick up his trombone and make music.
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”.28”
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 22”. 28”
 Dark Pencil, size: 18”.14”
 After Storm’s After a Storm 2002
Inspiration: Life lifts me as a wave, a leaf, and cloud when I fall upon the thorns of life. When wealth is lost, nothing is yet lost. When health is lost, something is lost. But when energy is lost, all is lost.
Material: oil on canvas, liquid, and acrylic
Color: landscape
Size: 24”.18”
 South Vietnamese Soldier
The great hope of America society is individual character. Therefore, my life is not to be a brick, which lies under dirty mud. Instead, I see my life as a brick, which supports the building of the American democracy.
Materials: dark pencil
Size: 18”.24”
 Bronze Figure of the Artist
Inspiration: Vietnamese communists oppressed the sculptor for nearly 20 years. When he came to the United States, he descended to the role of a coolie to the powerful. But he will proudly stand again when he has earned a Bachelor in Art in the United States. In his heart is this poem:
Many great men remind us,
We can make our lives sublime.
When we depart, what will we leave behind?
It should be more than footprints in the sands of time.
Materials: : bronze
Color: brown
Weight: approximately 75 lbs
Size: 23”.14”
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 16”.18”
 Painting of the Summit, 2002’
Inspiration: To reach the summit, one has to begin in the valley. Going step by step, he values each sign of progress, even if he never reaches the mountaintop.
. Materials: Material: old on canvas, liquid, and acrylic
Color: green,black, and brown
Size: 18”.24”
 A Caring Mother’
Inspiration: In a world that values modernity, Bright Quang wants to remind us of the values reflected in a mother’s tender bathing of her son in the corner of a yard of an impoverished household. Without such care, no child would grow up to be great. The painter esteems his mother as the most important figure in his life. There is no friendship, no love, like which a mother gives her child.
Materials: oil on canvas
Color: landscape
Size: 18”.24”
 Painting of the Goal �
Inspiration: The circle symbolizes the huge sky; the ordinate “Y” and the abscissa “X” symbolize the possibilities underlying each decision.
Materials: oil on canvas, liquid, and acrylic:
Color: white and black
Size: 23”.14”
Painting of Nostalgia �
Inspiration: The author’s thoughts travel nightly the world over, but nothing compares in beauty to his home. Although the very modern United States of America is his second home, the author can never forget to his fatherland. As a child, he swam in a blue river and flew a kite on arid knolls. As the sun sank behind purple mountains, he sat on a gray buffalo blending the sounds of his flute with the whistling of the evening wind.
Materials: oil on canvas,liquid, and acrylic
Size:16”.12”
 A Painting of President Diệm
Inspiration: Bright Quang painted a portrait of Former President Ngô Đinh Diệm in order to praise him because President Ngô Đinh Diệm was to be a Vietnamese hero.
Materials: oil on canvas, liquid, and acrylic:
Color: Oil on Canvas color
Size:16 ”. 12”
Size:16”.12”
 A Bronze of President Abraham Lincoln �
Bright Quang was a successful Vietnamese artist who was imprisoned by the Vietnamese government between 1975 and 1981. He came to the United States 1993 under the Humanitarian Operation Program designed to bring Vietnamese political prisoners to the United States. The artist makes commemorative busts to honor famous icons and everyday people. For the first, Abraham Lincoln is emblematic of freedom and justice. Bright Quang’s sculpture is meant to honor Lincoln as a great emancipator and to remind us all that abusive power, violence and injustice will always be rebelled against and ultimately overturned.“Justice is long lasting, but power has a short life.”
Material: bronze
Color: pea green
Weight: approximately 90 lbs
Size: approximately 22”. 12”. 10”
Size: 22”.12”.10”.
Painting of Nguyen Dynasty �
Inspiration: She came from a family educator of the Nguyen dynasty in Hue City, Vietnam. She came to the United States of America in Septmber 6, 1983, earned AA Degree of Childcare at Canada College in 2003, and was the best of Vietnamese woman.
Materials: oil on canvas, liquid, and acrylic
Size: 16”.12”
An Iraqi Boy’s Living in Nightmare ’ 2003
Inspiration: Even though, an Iraqi boy was lost his hands by the United States of bombs in war. When he lay on a hospital bed, in Iraq, he dreamed to see a President of the United States of America, who was a President Bush that he had brought again the freedom to the Iraq country.
Materials: old on canvas, liquid, and acrylic
Size: 22”.28”
|