T’ang Haywen was born in South China (Amoy) in 1927, a few years later he went to Cholon ( Saigon Chinese quarter) with his family, where he stayed until 1947. His name of origin was Zeng Tianfu, in Vietnam, his name became T’ang Thien Phuoc. He kept this Vietnamese surname, but changed his forename into Hai-Woon, which literally means “ocean of knowledge”. After he spelt it Haywen. He came to France in 1948 to study medicine but returned to his initial vocation -painting. After assimilating the western techniques, he developed his own style of ink paintings. It’s only after his official recognition in China that the western critics began to take an interest in him. In 1997 Taipei’s Fine Art was the first Museum to organize for him a large retrospective entitled “The Tao of Painting”. Three French museums followed suit : with a first exhibition at the Musée Océanographique of Monaco, a second at the Musée Tavet-Delacour in Pontoise and finally the third one in 2002 at the Musée Guimet . T’ang Haywen, like Zao Wouki and Chu Teh Chun, explored initially the western techniques of oil painting, going through a period of representation at the very beginning. In the 1960s he then, went through a period called “abstraction lyrique” still in oil . Afterwards, he returned to the ink techniques on paper.From then onwards he painted mainly on diptychs until the end of his life. He is quite unique in the sense that he merged 50s and 60s abstract notions into a Chinese conception of painting.