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Hwang Jonggu
Hwang Jonggu, Bottle with Figures Design. Celadon. early 1990s, H: 62cm. Image provided by Ewha Womans University Museum

Hwang Jonggu

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Hwang Jonggu (1919–2003) was a ceramist active from the second-half of the 1950s through the second-half of the 1990s. He was born as the son of the celadon master Hwang Inchun (1894–1950) in Seoul in 1919. He took a course at the annex of the Seto Institute of Ceramics in Japan in 1939. After returning to Korea, he became a teacher in the ceramics department of the Kaesong Public Industrial School. From 1959, he served as a professor of the Ceramics Department in the College of Art at Ewha Womans University for twenty-five years. His oeuvre in and after the late 1950s centered on developing his father’s celadon and reinterpreting it with a modern twist. In May 1959, Hwang founded the Research Institute of Ceramics [Doye yeonguso] affiliated with the Ceramics Department at Ewha Womans University and served as its director. There, he selected outstanding clay from all over the country, focused on the production of celadon and white porcelain, and published the academic journal Doye yeongu (Study of ceramic art). Since the 1960s, he engaged himself in creation, research, education, and experimentation that maintained the legacy of traditional ceramics while adopting the trend of Western contemporary ceramics. Among the prizes he won are the Seoul Cultural Award (1966), the Presidential Award for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan (1970), and the Korean Educational Achievement Award (1984). He participated in several exhibitions, such as the Korean Contemporary Ceramics in 1973, the Solo Exhibition at Daimaru Department Store Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, in 1980, and the Invitational Exhibition at the Beijing Cultural Center, China, in 1992. In 1998, he created a thousand celadon Buddhas for Mireuksa Temple in Seosan, Chungcheongnam-do Province. He also served as a recommended artist and judge for the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon) (1966–1983), an advisor to the Korean Contemporary Ceramic Artists Association (Hanguk hyeondae doyegahoe) (1984–2003), chairman of the jury panel for the Korean Crafts Competition (1990), and a member of the operating committee for the Seoul Shinmun Literary and Art Competition (1994). In 2005, the posthumous special exhibition The Way of the Potter—Hwang Jong-gu, Ceramist, Scientists and Artist held at Ewha Womans University Museum.
* Source: MMCA

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