Contemporary Korean Painting Exhibition, Brochure, MMCA Art Research Center Collection
Contemporary Korean Painting Exhibition
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Lee Kyungsung
Lee Kyungsung (1919-2009, pen name Seoknam) was born in Incheon as the first son of Lee Hak-soon and Jin Bo-bae. He graduated from Changyeong Elementary School (1926-31) and Gyeongseong Commercial School (1934-36). In 1937, he moved to Japan and graduated from the Department of Law at Waseda University in 1941. After his return to Korea, he worked as a clerk at the Gyeongseong Court. Later, he returned to Japan to study art history at Weseda University. After independence, he was appointed as the first director of the Incheon City Museum, a director of Hongik University Museum, Walker Hill Art Center (1981-83), and the MMCA (1981-83, 1986-92). He strived to improve the structure of Korean art museums and also trained professional curators. During his appointment as a professor at Ewha Womans University (1957-60) and Hongik University (1961-81), he also served as a chair of the Korean Art Critics Association and published several important books that contributed to the foundation of a modern Korean art history. He established the Seoknam Art Culture Foundation in 1989 and the Seoknam awards for art and art theory. After his retirement, he focused on his art and held numerous solo exhibitions.
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Park Seo-Bo
Park Seo-Bo(1931-2023, real name Park Jaehong) belongs to the first generation of artists who received art education in Korea after Korea’s liberation from Japan. He was a leading figure in Art Informel and Dansaekhwa. He was born in Yecheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province. He majored in Western painting in the College of Fine arts at Hongik University and graduated in 1955. He served as a professor at Hongik University and the board president of the Korean Fine Arts Association (Hanguk misul hyeophoe). Park made his debut as a painter in 1956 through the Four Artists Exhibition that declared resistance to the National Art Exhibition and the established generation. After presenting abstract expressionist work completely different from the established art at the third Hyundae Fine Artists Association exhibition in 1958, he led the Art Informel movement until the mid-1960s. In the 1970s, he headed large-scale special exhibitions, including Independants, the Seoul Contemporary Art Festival, Ecole de Séoul, and Korea: Facet of Contemporary Art. He also played a key role in establishing “Dansaekhwa” as a style of Korean painting in the 1970s. His oeuvre can be divided into three periods. The first period (late 1950s–mid 1960s) is referred to as the Art Informel period, during which Park depicted the post-war situation with distorted and deconstructed human forms, dark colors, and rough matière, particularly in the Primordials series. During the second period (late 1960s–early 1970s), he focused on the modernization of tradition, presenting optical and geometric abstraction with five colors representing the five cardinal directions as the dominant compositional element under the thesis of hereditarus. During the third period (1970s–2023), which is known as the period of monochrome painting, he presented the Ecriture series, in which performance was fundamental to his creation. The Ecriture series can be divided into two periods: before and after year 1982. In the former period, Park repeatedly applied milky oil paint to a canvas and before it dried, drew lines with a pencil or a tool with a sharp tip, thus leaving traces of this act on the canvas. In the latter period, he used water-based paints instead of oil-based paints in an effort to more directly capture his emotions with bright hues inspired by the colors of nature. Until his death, he sought to build the identity of Korean art through various methodologies within a single thesis of ecriture and elevated Dansaekhwa to an international level.
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Choi Sunu
Choi Sunu (1916-1984, pen name Hyegok) was an art historian who served as the fourth director of the National Museum. After graduating from Songdo High School in Kaesong in 1936, he worked as a clerk in the Archaeology Department of the Gaepung County Office and studied art history by exploring historical sites with Ko Yuseop. He began working at the Kaesong Provincial Museum in 1946 and was transferred to the National Museum in 1949. When the Korean War broke out, he was tasked with transporting the National Museum’s collection to Busan. He met Jeon Hyeong-pil (pen name: Kansong) when he covered up an attempt to relocate Jeon’s Bohwagak collection in Seongbuk-dong to North Korea, and the two became close friends. Both his pen name “Soonwoo” and his pen name “Hyegok” were given by Jeon Hyeong-pil. Choi later served as the supply department head, curator, and director of the National Museum, leading research and exhibitions on Korean cultural heritage. From the late 1950s, he was in charge of Masterpieces of Korean Art, a traveling exhibition that toured the U.S. and Europe (1957–1959) and curated 2,000 Years of Korean Arts (1973) and 5,000 Years of Korean Art (in Japan in 1976, the U.S. from 1979 to 1981, and in Europe in 1984) to promote abroad the excellence of Korean culture. He was also interested in contemporary art and interacted with contemporary artists, including Kim Whanki, Kim Swoogeun, Chang Ucchin, Kim Kichang, and others. In 1956, he established Art Critics Association along with Kim Youngjoo, Lee Kyungsung, Kim Chung-up, Han Mook, and Chung Kyu. He lectured at Hongik University and Ewha Womans University and in 1981 received an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature from Hongik University. He served as the first president (1965–1966) of the Korean Art Critics Association (Hanguk misul pyeongnonga hyeophoe), a member of the Cultural Heritage Commission, and president of the Art History Association of Korea. Focusing on research on the history of Korean crafts and Korean painting, Choi wrote several publications, including Hoehwa (Painting, 1973), Mokchil gongye (Wood lacquering crafts, 1974), Goryeo doja (Goryeo ceramics, 1975), Hanguk hoehwa (Korean painting 1-3, 1975), Hanguk hoehwa (Korean painting 1-3, 1982), Hanguk cheongja doyoji (Kilns of Korean celadon, 1982), Cheongja – Togi (Celadon and earthenware, 1983). His posthumous works include Choesunu jeonjip (Collected works by Choi Sunu, 1996), Muryangsujeon baeheullim gidunge gidaeseoseo (Leaning against an entasis column of Muryangsujeon hall, 1994), and Naneun naegeosi areumdapda (I think mine is beautiful, 2002).
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Lee Yil
Lee Yil(1932-1997) was a first-generation critic whose art criticism was based on art theories and greatly impacted the formation of Korean modernism. He was born in Gangseo, Pyeongannam-do Province and his real name is Lee Jinsik. While attending Pyongyang High School, Lee defected to South Korea and went to Gyeongbok High School in Seoul. After graduation, he entered the French Literature Department at Seoul National University but dropped out and moved to Paris. In 1961, he studied archaeology and art history at Sorbonne University. There, he worked as a Paris correspondent for the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. In 1964, he translated and published L’aventure de l’art abstrait (The Adventure of Abstract Art) by Michel Ragon. Returning to Korea in 1965, Lee began practicing art criticism in earnest. In 1966, he joined Hongik University as a professor of art theory, and he held the position for thirty years until his retirement in 1997. He wrote A Trajectory of Contemporary Art that introduced contemporary art of the West in 1974. Among his translated works are Naissance d’un Art Nouveau (Birth of Art Nouveau) (1974) by Michel Ragon, The History of World Painting (1974), and History of Art by H.W. Janson (1984). From the 1980s, he published books on art criticism, including Korean Art: The Face of Today (1982) and Reduction and Expansion of Contemporary Art (1991). After his death, the collections of his posthumous manuscripts, Lee Yil: Art Criticism Journal (1998) and The Critic Lee Yil Anthology in two volumes (2013), were published. Lee Yil’s art criticism activities can be divided largely into two periods. The former period spans from the time he returned from France to the early 1970s. During this period, Lee was interested in anti-art such as Dadaism and Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism). He inspired the formation of the Union Exhibition of Korean Young Artists that was brought together in solidarity by the generation who experienced the April 19 Revolution. Serving as a founding member and theorist of the Korean Avant Garde Association (referred to as AG) established in 1969, he developed criticism that laid the foundation for the formation of avant-garde art that emphasized experimentation. Around 1971 and 1972, he redirected his attention to art reflecting Korean culture and the spirit of Koreans rather than avant-garde focused on resistance. In the latter period, he stressed a “return to the primordial.” With his distinctive critical concepts, such as “reduction and expansion” and “pan-naturalism,” he actively supported the Korean Minimalism school of painters, especially Dansaekhwa artists. Lee’s critical perspective became a cornerstone in the narrative of Korean contemporary art history in the 1970s.
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