Lim Gunhong: The Forgotten Painter Leaflet, 1984, MMCA Art Research Center Collection
Lim Gunhong: The Forgotten Painter
* Source: MMCA
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Oil Paintings of Unbanned Artists
Oil Paintings of Unbanned Artists was an exhibition held from July 31 through August 12 in 1990 at Shinsegae Gallery. It introduced to the general public works by ten artists, who defected to North Korea, for the first time in forty years. They included Pai Unsoung, Kim Jukyung, Kim Youngjun, Gil Jinseop, Jeong Hyeonung, Lee Qoede, Lim Gunhong, Choi Jaiduck, Kim Man-hyeong, and Jeong Onnyeo. In October 1988, the South Korean government lifted the ban on artists who were abducted and defected to North Korea. Ji Myeongmun, then director of Shinsegae Gallery, stated that “this exhibition was organized in the hope that those artists who were abducted and defected to North Korea would be given their due art historical recognition after forty years of taboo.” At this exhibition, forty works produced before 1950 were on display, such as Chongseokjeong Pavilion on Haegeumgang River by Pai Unsoung, Self-portrait and Dahlias and Zinnia by Kim Youngjun, Landscape Against Mt. Bukak and Early Autumn by Kim Jukyung, Wonju Landscape by Gil Jinseop, Family and Bird by Lim Gunhong, Fishbowl by Choi Jaiduck, and Lady by Lee Qoede. The exhibition also presented ten works in the collections of bereaved families and relatives of artists who were abducted or defected to North Korea, which were scattered throughout the country, including thirty works in private collections, a work in the collection of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, and some works in the collection of the Tokyo University of the Arts Museum.
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Eom Doman
Eom Doman(1915-1971) was an artist who was active in Western painting and industrial art from the Japanese colonial era through the period of Korea’s liberation from Japan, and defected to North Korea during the Korean War. He graduated from Jugyo Public Common School in Seoul in 1929. He won an honorable mention at the Calligraphy and Painting Association [Seohwa hyeophoe] Exhibition in 1931 and the Joseon Art Exhibition [Joseon misul jeollamhoe] in 1937 with Portrait of Girl. In 1932, he took a job as a painter at the Dongyang Offset Printing Company in Seoul, and he worked as an art director in the design department of Yuhan Corporation from 1936 through 1939. In 1936, he participated in the founding exhibition of Nokgwahoe along with Lim Gunhong, Hong Sunmun, Song Jeonghun, Choi Gyuman, and others. Eom submitted his Figure and Landscape to the exhibition. His activity in Nokgwahoe continued until 1938. In 1939, he moved to Hankou in China with his closest friend Lim Gunhong, and opened the Hankou Art and Advertising Agency. Like Yerim Studio, which Lim Gunhong and Eom Doman operated in Gyeongseong, the Hankou Art and Advertising Agency engaged in a wide range of commercial art activities encompassing advertising for movie theaters and murals, interior design, and the production of cards and postcards. Immediately after Korea’s liberation from Japan, Eom returned to Korea and joined several art organizations. For instance, he was a founding member of the Association of Korean Industrial Artists ([Joseon saneop misulga hyeophoe], renamed the Korean Industrial Artist Association [Daehan saneop misulga hyeophoe] in 1954) established in December 1945. He was also active in the Korean Plastic Arts Federation [Joseon johyeong yesul dongmaeng] (established in 1946) and the Korean Art and Culture Association [Joseon misul munhwa hyeophoe] (established in 1947), among other organizations. The Korean Industrial Artist Association was an organization that industrial artists like Han Hongtaik, Lee Wanseok, and Jo Neungsik founded in order to “organically and comprehensively combine art and industry” and “create popular living art.” His activity in the Korean Art and Culture Association lasted until 1949. Among his colleagues were Lee Qoede, Lee Insung, Lim Gunhong, Han Hongtaik, Cho Byungduk, and Son Eungsung. In 1946, Eom held the Six Western-style Painters exhibition together with Lim Gunhong and Han Hongtaik, with whom he collaborated in several organizations. After the outbreak of the Korean War, he defected to North Korea during the recapturing of Seoul on September 28. In North Korea, he worked in various institutions and organizations, including the Korean Art Manufactory [Joseon misul jejakso] and Korean Artist Federation [Joseon misulga dongmaeng], where he produced propaganda posters and realistic oil paintings.
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Artists who defected to North Korea
Artists who defected to North Korea refer to artists who moved their spaces of artistic activities to north of the armistice line during the period immediately after Korea’s liberation from Japan on August 15, 1945 until the signing of the truce agreement. Prior to the lifting of the bans on artists who were abducted by or defected to North Korea in 1988, they were labeled traitors for “betraying the South Korean system and choosing the North Korean one” or “choosing communism.” Their works were deemed “detrimental to ideas,” so it was forbidden to mention them. However, contrary to the reasons for restrictions imposed by the government, recent studies have revealed that the defection of most artists to North Korea resulted not from ideological choices or alignment with political system of North Korea, but from unavoidable circumstances caused by the war and division of the country. Accordingly, the scope of research on artists who defected to North Korea can vary depending on researchers or research environments. It discusses the conflict and movement between the two spaces of Seoul and Pyongyang or South and North Korea and further includes those that the South Korean government defined as artists who chose the North Korean system. The number of artists who defected to North Korea amounts to roughly sixty to eighty. In recent years, there has been a view that the so-called consecutive lifting, which differentiates and selectively relieves artists who defected to North Korea voluntarily, those abducted to North Korea, those residing in North Korea, and those who returned to North Korea after defection to South Korea, is an act of high-level public security control. This is seen as a non-academic power tyranny and violence against intelligence that insults the particularity of art, leading to voices to dismantle and prospectively reconstruct the existing frame of the lifting of bans on abducted artists and artists who defected to North Korea.
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