Anh Duong

Duong was born in Bordeaux, France, to a Spanish mother and a Vietnamese father. Duong studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Having aspired to be a ballerina from an early age, she decided to pursue classical dance. Duong studied with the Franchetti Academy of Classical Dance and Tessa Beaumont until she embarked on a modeling career—being photographed for Vogue, among other publications.

Today, she is represented by the Sonnabend Gallery, and her latest exhibition was held at Robilant & Voena in London. A catalogue was published with an essay called True Selfie by Phoebe Hoban in which she writes: "Painter Anh Duong has created her own personal genre: call it the 'True Selfie.' Long before digital self-images—or 'selfies'—became virtually ubiquitous, Duong, like many figurative painters, decided to make herself the subject of an ongoing series of self-portraits. But unlike other painters, who rely on their own reflection in a mirror as a reference, Duong has exclusively focused on portraying what she calls her 'true' self."

In 2013, Duong was photographed by Patrick Demarchelier for Bottega Veneta.

In 2013, Duong worked on Desiree Akhavan's first feature film, Appropriate Behavior, in which she played Nasrin, the lead character's mother. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.

Duong has since become a recognized painter in New York City. Forgetting the subject to focus on the technical painting itself, she focuses on the portrait, and mostly the self-portrait she has painted on a daily basis as a diary. "(...) her paintings expose an unexpected, unglamorous, intimate relationship with her body (...) Duong's paintings should be viewed as contributions to a different genre – they belong alongside the work of women such as Dora Maar, Anaïs Nin, and Frida Kahlo, artists who compellingly exposed interior worlds whose beauty, intelligence, and character inspired creativity, both in themselves and in others."

In June 2006, Duong married Barton Hubbard Quillen, an architect whose maternal grandmother was the third wife of financier Thomas Mellon Evans Jr., owner of 1981 Kentucky Derby winner Pleasant Colony. The couple divorced in 2008.

A book about her work, Anh Duong (Self) Portraits, was published in 2001.

In 1997, she had her first museum exhibition at P.M.M.K. – Provincial Museum of Modern Art, Ostende, Belgium which led to an exhibition at Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris in 1999 with more than 65 Self-portraits on display followed by a show at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York in 2000.

In 1992, Duong was cast in The Mambo Kings as her debut feature film role. Her career also includes roles in such films as I Shot Andy Warhol and Lisa Cholodenko's High Art, which was presented in Cannes and also at the Sundance Film Festival. Duong also acted in two films by French director Laetitia Masson, For Sale and Love Me, the latter of which was screened at the Berlin Film Festival.

Although Duong has always drawn and painted, it was after spending a summer painting at the Warhol Estate in Montauk in 1989 that she decided to focus on art. Soon after in 1991, she had her first solo exhibition at Sperone Westwater Gallery of 12 large portraits measuring 8 x 6 feet each.

In 1988, Duong moved to New York City and began a career as an artist and an actress.

In 1988, Duong began to re-focus her acting and art career. During this time, the fashion world was leaning towards using non-models in their magazines and campaigns, and so Duong embarked on a second phase of her modeling career, as an artist featured in various campaigns. She was featured in the famous first Gap Inc. campaign shot by Herb Ritts and featured other artists and actors, all in black and white. She has been shot by Steven Meisel, Michel Comte, and Peter Lindbergh for Donna Karan and has been featured in the J. Crew and Banana Republic campaigns.

Anh Duong (born 25 October 1960) is a French-American and Vietnamese artist, actress, and model. She is known for her self-portraits, which she has compared to a visual diary, as well as portraits of significant art collectors and influencers.