Ewha Womans University
Ewha Womans University is a private university located in Daehyeon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. Its parent institution was the College courses at Ewha Hakdang (Ewha Girl’s School), Korea’s first women’s school that the American missionary Mary Scranton founded in Jeong-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul. During the Japanese colonial era, it became Ewha College that functioned as a relief vocational school. In 1945, it was accredited as Korea’s first university. In 1946, it was renamed the Ewha Womans University. The College of Art and Design at Ewha Womans University was the first four-year university institution specializing in fine arts in South Korea. In October 1945, the Ewha Womans University had Hallimwon, Yerimwon, and Haengnimwon. Yerimwon was like an art college with a fine arts department and a music department. In 1946, the art department in Yerimwon was reorganized into the School of Fine Arts, and in September 1947 four major departments of Eastern-style painting, Western-style painting, embroidery, and design were established in the School of Fine Arts at Yerimwon. In October 1949, the graduation exhibition Nongmihoe of the first class was held at Daewon Gallery through the sponsorship of the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper company. In December 1951, the Department of Fine Arts in the College of Art came to be equipped with eight majors of Eastern painting, Western painting, sculpture, embroidery, design, photography, interior design, and dyeing. The Department of Fine Arts was installed in the graduate school as well. In 1967, the Department of Painting was divided into Eastern painting and Western painting departments, and the Department of Decorative Art was newly established. The school system, reformed in March 1998. It consists of three faculties and nine majors: School of Fine Arts (Korean painting, painting · printmaking, and sculpture), School of Design (environmental design, visual communication design, industrial design, and fashion design), and School of Crafts (textile art and ceramic art). Currently, the College of Art and Design consists of the Fine Art Division, Design Division, and Fiber/Fashion Division.
Living Art Department
The name of a department in universities that teaches living arts, the Living Art Department is the successor of the Department of Drawing and the predecessor of the Department of Design. Living art is a field that encompasses crafts and design, mainly ceramics, textile art, and interior art, in response to fine arts. It can be defined as an aesthetic field related to human living culture. After Ewha Womans University promoted the School of Fine Arts to the College of Fine Arts in 1960, it established the Department of Painting, the Department of Living Art, the Department of Sculpture, and the Department of Embroidery. The College of Education at Sungshin Women’s University installed majors in art education and living art in 1965, and in 1972 a living art major was established in the Department of Fine Arts in its graduate school. Kookmin University began teaching ceramics by establishing the Living Art Department in 1968, and in 1971 it installed the Living Art Department, the predecessor of the Department of Crafts, within the School of Home Economics. When the School of Design was newly established by merging the Department of Costume, the Department of Living Art, the Department of Decorative Arts, and Department of Architecture in 1974, the Living Art Department was separated from the School of Home Economics. When Kookmin University was promoted to a four-year university in 1981, the School of Design was renamed the College of Design, the Department of Living Art was renamed the Department of Craft Arts, and the majors of ceramics and metalwork were separated. In many cases, the Living Art Department was installed not in the College of Fine Arts but in the College of Home Economics, as seen in Sungkyunkwan University and Kookmin University. Yonsei University has had the Department of Living Design in the College of Life Sciences since 1996.
Korea Fiber Artists’ Association
The Korea Fiber Artists’ Association (Hanguk seomyu misulgahoe, KFAA) was founded in 1984 by a group of artists who played a leading role in fiber art. Its first president was Pai Mansil, a professor in the Decorative Arts Department at Ewha Womans University. The inaugural exhibition was held in May 1984 at the Korea Culture and Arts Foundation Art Center. Since its founding, the KFAA has been hosting the Korean Fiber Art Biennale, an international exhibition event, every two years. The biennale began with the participation of artists who have led the Korean fiber art scene, including Lee Shinja, Kim Jihee, Park Sookhee, Jeong Jeonghui, and Lee Sungsoon. Every year, it has expanded to include about 100 members including current university professors and rising artists. In the KFAA exhibitions, various attempts to showcase expanded modes of expression of contemporary fiber art, ranging from the two-dimensional approach to three-dimensional approach and installation, have been made. Moreover, the KFAA holds international textile exchange exhibitions with Indonesia, Japan, and other countries and endeavors to preserve the Korean fiber art tradition and modernize it while focusing on developing creative cultural contents for fiber artists.
Korean Applied Artists Association
The Korean Applied Artists Association [Hanguk eungyong misulga hyeophoe; KAAA] is a private crafts and design organization formed by members primarily from the Department of Applied Arts at Seoul National University. It was founded in February 1960 and held two exhibitions in 1961 and 1964. Its members consisted of graduates from around 1953 when the Department of Design was reorganized into the Department of Applied Arts in the College of Fine Arts of Seoul National University and those who had been teaching at the department since the late 1950s. Major members include Paik Taewon, Park Daisoon, Yim Hongsoon, Bong Sangkyun, Kang Huisu, Paik Taiho, Lee Dongchan, Lee Shinja, Min Chulhong, and Kwon Giljung. The first member exhibition of the KAAA was held in May 1961 at the Korean Information Service Gallery, and the second edition was held three years later in 1964 at the same place. At the first exhibition, forty works by twenty members were displayed. Exhibited objects varied, including household items, interior furniture, accessories, tourism posters, bookbinding, architectural planes, wall decorations, and mosaics. The second exhibition featured roughly 100 works by fifty members. The membership and activities of the KAAA testify to the fact that crafts and designs were still grouped together and understood under the concept of applied art until the first half of the 1960s when the concept of contemporary design was being formed.
Modern Korean Art Exhibition
The Modern Korean Art Exhibition was organized by the National Museum of Modern Art, Korea (now MMCA) from 1974 through 1978 with the intention of chronicling the history of contemporary art by genre. Starting with the Exhibition of Modern Korean Sculpture (June 10–30, 1974), it was held annually for five years, the Modern Korean Crafts Grand Exhibition (July 9–27, 1975), the Modern Korean Art Exhibition: Eastern Paintings (June 16–July 15, 1976), the Modern Korean Western Painting Exhibition (March 14–April 2, 1977), and the Modern Korean Art Exhibition: Calligraphy, Architecture, and Photography (June 16–September 15, 1978). Over the course of five editions of the Modern Korean Art Exhibition, some 900 artists were introduced, and a large number of works were discovered or revisited. In conjunction with each edition, the MMCA published a series of Hanguk hyeondae misulsa (The history of Korean contemporary art), starting with sculpture written by Yoo Geunjun in 1974 and continuing with crafts by Lee Kyungsung in 1975, Eastern painting by Lee Gu-yeol in 1976, Western painting by Oh Kwang-su and Yu Jun-sang in 1977, architecture by Yun Ilju and Kang Myeong-gu in 1978, photography by Yook Myoungshim and Choe Injin in 1979, and calligraphy by Yim Changsun, Lee Gu-yeol, and Lee Heungu in 1981. This series of publications laid the foundation for art history research in each field. In particular, Lee Gu-yeol and Oh Kwang-su published additional and revised versions of their book Hanguk hyeondae misulsa to release Geundae hangukhwaui heureum (The flow of dodern Korean painting) (Lee Gu-yeol, Mijinsa, 1984) and Hanguk hyeondae misulsa: 1900nyeon ihuui hanguk misurui jeongae (Korean contemporary art history: Development of Korean Art after 1900" (Oh Kwang-su, Yeolhwadang, 1979). As basic research materials, they exerted considerable influence upon the study of art history in their respective fields. The MMCA’s holding of the Modern Korean Art Exhibition and its publication of art history books demonstrate the important role of the collaboration with national public museums in the study of Korean contemporary art history.