Kim Kichang, Autumn, Ink on Silk, 170.5×110cm. MMCA collection
Kim Kichang
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Kim Eunho
Kim Eunho (1892-1979, pen name Yidang) joined the Calligraphy and Painting Society (Seohwa misulhoe) in 1912 and learned Oriental painting under An Jungsik and Cho Seokjin. He was known for his sophisticated brush strokes and attention to detail. Early in his career he was appointed as a court portrait painter. He produced several portraits of kings from the Joseon dynasty and gained a reputation for his portraits and colored figure paintings. He contributed his works to the first exhibition of the Calligraphy and Painting Association (Seohwa hyeophoe) and the Joseon Art Exhibition. His trainees organized Husohoe in 1936, which contributed enormously to the Modern Oriental Art community in Korea. However, he was accused of pro-Japanese activities due to his overt acquiescence to Japanese Imperialism and his involvement in its wartime propaganda. He tried his hand at ink paintings in the 1950s and experimented with modernized colored landscape painting from the 1960s into his later years. In the 1960s, he painted several portraits of historic figures and published Hwadanilgyeong (1968) and Seohwabaeknyeon (1977).
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Park Rehyun
Park Rehyun (1920-1976, pen name Woohyang) studied at Gyeongseong girls Normal School and graduated from the Department of Japanese Painting at Tokyo Women’s Art School in 1944. She studied at the Pratt Institute in New York and Bob Blackburn’s Print Studio from 1969 to 1973. After she married Kim Kichang, she held several solo and collaborative exhibitions with her husband and contributed her works to Paek Yang Fine Art Exhibition. She won a Changdeokgung Palace Award at the Joseon Art Exhibition [Joseon misul jeollamhoe] in 1943, a President Award at the fifth National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon) in 1956, a President Award at the eighth Great Korean Art Association Exhibition in 1956, and a Shin Saimdang Award in 1974. During the colonial period, Park Rehyun produced Japanese style color portraits, then, after independence she moved toward a semi-abstract technique, often featuring the three-dimensional formal interpretation of objects and a division of planes and using traditional Oriental painting materials. In the 1960s, she gradually replaced this approach with a splashed ink and pre-dyeing effect. Then, after moving to the U.S., she expanded her oeuvre to include print and tapestry.
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Paek Yang Painting Association
An art group formed in 1957 to explore new perspectives on Korean paintings and educate future artists. The group was formed by nine artists including Kim Kichang and Park Rehyun of the Husohoe (who were students of Kim Eunho, also known by his pen name I-dang), Kim Youngki, and Chun Kyungja. In January 1961, the group organized a touring exhibition in Southeast Asia, which is noteworthy as the first overseas exhibition held by a Korean private-sector art organization. In this traveling exhibition, the term “hangukwa (Korean painting)” was used for the first time to refer to traditional ink painting, instead of the previously dominant term “Eastern painting.”
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Eastern painting
Eastern painting (dongyanghwa) refers to the overall body of works created using traditional East Asian materials and methods, in contrast to Western painting. In Korea, Byeon Yeongro’s essay “On Eastern Painting” published in Dong-A Ilbo on 7th, July, 1920 was the first use of the term. The term then began to be used in Japan first to distinguish Oriental style paintings from Western ones. Until the late Joseon era, both calligraphy and painting were categorized under the term seohwa, but during the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1922, the first Joseon Art Exhibition [Joseon misul jeollamhoe] divided the painting section into Western and Eastern styles. Thereafter, the term Eastern-style painting entered official use in the country. After independence, the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon) continued to use the term “Eastern painting,” but since 1970, numerous arguments were made to replace it with "Korean painting," because the term was imposed unilaterally during the Japanese colonial era.
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Contemporary Korean Painting (1958)
A Korean art exhibition held from February 25 to March 22, 1958 at the World House Galleries in New York. The exhibition was considered the first exhibition after the Korean war to introduce the trends within Korean art to the international community. Ellen D. Psatty, an associate professor and art historian at Georgia University who organized the exhibition, visited Korea in August 1957 and contacted the Daehan Art Association and Korean Fine Arts Association and selected about 100 works of art. Of these, she chose 62 to be featured the exhibition. Of the exhibits, only Kim Kichang’s Warhorse sold at 2,000 dollars, and the exhibition failed to achieve much attention in the United States.
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Exhibition of Ten Eastern Painters
Exhibition of Ten Eastern Painters was an invitational exhibition of ten mid-career Eastern-style painters held under the theme of “a feast of Eastern paintings” by the Seoul Shinmun newspaper company from April 14 through 20, 1978 at the Seoul Press Center in Seoul. It is also known as Ten Master Eastern-style Painters. The invited artists were Kim Kichang, Kim Okjin, Kim Hwakyung, Suh Seok, Sung Jaehyu, Ahn Dongsook, Lee Yootae, Chang Woosoung, Cho Joonghyun, and Heo Geon. Twenty works were displayed. In 1971, the Seoul Shinmun had already organized an exhibition of six ink painters, who were Kim Eunho, No Soohyeon, Park Seungmoo, Byeon Gwansik, Lee Sangbeom, and Huh Baeklyun, under the title of the Exhibition of Six Eastern-style Painters. The six artists invited to this exhibition were those who were still alive at the time after participating in the Landscape Paintings by Ten Masters exhibition hosted by Oh Bongbin of the Joseon Art Museum and curated by the art journalist Lee Gu-yeol. They were representatives of Korean modern and contemporary Eastern-style painters, and their works were traded at the highest prices in the Korean art market in the 1970s. Seven years later, the Seoul Shinmun newspaper company selected “ten mid-career artists of the Eastern painting circle who carried on the legacy of great masters of the time while recalling the brilliant achievements of 1971” and held Ten Master Eastern Painters in 1978. In order to raise interest in the exhibition, a series of articles to introduce the invited artists was published under the title of “Painting Studio of New Spring: In Search of the Participating Artists of the Exhibition Ten Master Eastern Painters” from March 17 through April 13, 1978, about a month before the exhibition was held. The Seoul Shinmun also declared that it would annually conduct cultural projects in the future. In 1979, it introduced young Eastern-style painters in their 30s and 40s in the Twelve Eastern Painters exhibition. In the 1970s, Eastern paintings were overwhelmingly popular in the Korean art market, compared to other genres. Various exhibitions on Eastern paintings were held regardless of the size of the exhibition space, including Five Eastern Painters (1977, Sun Gallery), Invitational Exhibition of Thirty Eastern Painters (1977, Dongsanbang Gallery), Fourteen Eastern Painters, Five Eastern Painters (Johyeong Gallery), and Five Eastern Painters (Chungwang Gallery). Among such exhibitions, the Exhibition of Ten Eastern Painters organized by the Seoul Shinmun newspaper company attracted more attention because it was held under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Public Information.
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