Huynh Phuong Dong was born in April 1925 in Binh Hoa, Gia Dinh Province in southern Vietnam. Huynh Cong Nhan took the name by which he is now widely known later in life. As a small child he enjoyed drawing and was encouraged by his teachers. At the age of fifteen he was accepted into the School of Fine Art at Gia Dinh, on the edge of Saigon where he supplemented his modest scholarship with sales of his art and homemade paint brushes.
Just as he was ready to graduate in 1945, French troops returned to Saigon in response to Ho Chi Minh’s proclamation of independence and Dong joined the Viet Minh resistance against the French in Soc Trang and Can Tho provinces. His artistic skills were employed, recording the events of the Autumn Resistance and in designing and distributing propaganda leaflets and posters in Saigon. Dong was drawing at every opportunity, but was also in active military service against the French.
After joining an artists’ exchange programme in 1955 and travelling to Russia and Eastern Europe, Dong returned to formal training at L’Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts de L’Indochine, the country’s premier art school in Hanoi.
He remained a member of the Viet Minh and in 1963 he returned to the south to join the insurgency against the Saigon Government and the American War. Leaving his wife and young family behind, for six months he travelled by foot the nearly thousand miles of the Truong Son (or Ho Chi Minh Trail) to join the National Liberation Front at Cu Chi. 
There he was assigned as a leader to the propaganda and education unit whose members would join the combat troops to record action on the battlefield, but also taking up arms as necessary to protect themselves or help the campaign.
Besides fighting and documenting the war, Dong also took the opportunity to organise art exhibitions in the field and established drawing classes for soldiers in the bases to help raise their spirits.
Dong’s sketches and paintings bear witness to his presence at many fierce battles, including Ap Bac, Binh Gia, the battle for Y Bridge and Junction City. He was constantly sketching and drawing, scenes of battle, troops in action, portraits of comrades and simply scenes of daily life in the guerrilla bases. 
Dong never left the war zone during the American war, but in 1973 was reunited with his wife, Le Thi Thu, a doctor who herself made the treacherous journey south on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Following the war, Dong worked for the Fine Arts Association and subsequently professor of art at the Architecture University of Ho Chi Minh City. In 1988 he toured Cambodia, then occupied by Vietnamese forces seeking to overthrow the Khmer Rouge.
Dong’s works have been exhibited in Europe, America and Asia and hang in both Vietnamese and international museums and private collections. He passed his later years surrounded by his life’s works and drawing daily, often sketching a quick portrait of his visitors. He passed away in December 2015. A collection of his works and his story was published in 2006 (“Huynh Phuong Dong – Visions of War and Peace”, Indochina Arts Partnership).