HÀ NỘI — As many as 18 printed copies of paintings and posters by Cuban painter Rene Mederos will be displayed at the Work Room Four Exhibition hall in Hà Nội.

In 1969, Mederos (1933-1996) was assigned by the Cuban government to visit Việt Nam to paint scenes of the American war in Việt Nam.

He marched with Vietnamese soldiers along the Hồ Chí Minh trail from the north to the south, experiencing first-hand the brutal conditions of war and the courageous response of the Vietnamese people.

In 1972, he returned to Việt Nam once again to reflect the lives of the locals through his paintings.

He made a total of 36 paintings and posters following the two trips, which have been displayed throughout the world by anti-war organisations.

Several of these images were reproduced in the United States as part of the anti-war and Cuba solidarity efforts and in Cuba as a set of postage stamps.

The exhibition at Work Room Four hall also features paintings by five Vietnamese artists -- Lê Quý Tông, Nguyễn Thế Sơn, Nguyễn Nghĩa Cương, Phạm Khắc Quang and Giang Nguyễn -- on the same topic.

The exhibition is on between May 19 and June 12.

Work Room Four is located at 24th Floor, Packexim Building Tower 1, No 49 Lane 15 An Dương Vương Street, Tây Hồ District.

Mederos, a self-taught artist from Sagua la Grande, began work at a Havana print shop in 1944 and was appointed chief designer for Cuba’s principal television station in 1959.

In 1964, at the beginning of the new wave of Cuban graphic design, Mederos began creating his first posters as head of the design team of propaganda organisation Intercommunications.

He died of cancer in Havana in 1996. His style -- with its bright, firmly contoured surfaces, its ebullience of patterns in nature and a strong political theme -- established a unique standard for graphic design in Cuba, which influenced a whole generation of graphic artists all over the world. — VNS