Folk heroes, often fictional and mythological, never die no matter how ridiculously endowed with gargantuan powers. Joan of Arc, Spartacus, Pocahontas, Ned Kelly… we have more than our fair share. In Vietnam, there's Thanh Giong, memorialized with an equestrian monument in Ho Chi Minh City and a bronze version in Hanoi's Soc Son Giong Temple perched on the Da Chong mountain, where an annual celebration lasting 12 days is held in his honour. Giong is sometimes referred to as Phu Dong Thien Vuong, the holy king of the sky. The legend stemmed from the tale of a three-year-old boy who almost overnight grew in physique and stature and armed with only a longsword, rode on an iron horse to Van Lang Kingdom to ward off the Han Chinese northern invaders, or in another version slayed the rival king of An. Another version has Thanh Giong as an incarnation of Vaisravana or Kubera. The deity and the festival are both recognised by Unesco as intangible cultural heritage. A modern Thanh Giong can be found in Vo Nguyen Gap and Ho Chi Min who led Vietnam to defeat first the French, at Dien Bien Phu, and then the Americans in the protracted Vietnam War, respectively. Nguyen Tu Nghiem is revered as one of the Great Quartet of Vietnamese Art, the others in his generation being Bui Xuan Phai, Duong Bich Lien and Nguyen Sang. He was in the 15th intake of the Indo-China Fine Arts College between 1941-1946, then under Joseph Inguimberty. Like Phai, he won the highly coveted Ho Chi Minh Prize for art in 1996, after the 1st Prize in the Salon Unique in 1944. In his early years, he was inspired by Nguyen Do Cung and To Ngoc Van. He is remembered for his revolutionary zeal against the French invaders in the early 1950s, and even taught art at the Viet Bac revolution base. He also taught at his alma mater and the Hanoi Industrial Fine Arts University. As the last surviving of the quartet, he exerted greater influence with his art.