War Documentation Art Exhibition
* Source: MMCA
Related
-
War Artists Corps
An organization formed after the outbreak of the Korean War. Its parent organization was the Bureau of Troop Information and Education of the Ministry of Defense. After the outbreak of the War, the organization was formed in Daegu by art teachers from each school. Once Seoul was recaptured by the South, artists based in Seoul joined and the association expanded. The military artist group consisted of multiple groups, divided by region—Daegu, Busan, and Gwangju—and military branches—Navy, Air Force, and Army. The military artist group was the headquarters that oversaw all these groups. The war painters held over 10 war documentary painting exhibitions over the course of the Korean War. The first was the Military Artists Prop Exhibition of the Ministry of Defense, which was held in March 1951 at the Bureau of Public Information in Daegu. The last exhibition was held in May 4, 1953.
-
Kim Byungki
Kim Byungki (1916-2022) was one of the first-generation Korean abstract artists. He was born in Pyongyang as the second son of Kim Chanyoung, who graduated from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He associated with Kim Whanki at the Avant-garde Western Art Institute in Tokyo in 1933, and in 1939 he studied at the Art Department of Bunka School in Tokyo together with Lee Jungseop and Mun Haksu. After his return to Korea, he served as a secretary of the Korean Art Alliance (Joseon misul dongmaeng) in Pyongyang and then moved to Seoul in 1948. Kim Byungki established the 1950 Art Association (Osimnyeon misul hyeophoe) under the Korean Culture Research Institute in 1949 and, as its secretary-general, tried to unite established artists, but due to the outbreak of the Korean War, it never held exhibitions. During the war, he worked as a deputy director of the military painter group. In 1954, he participated in the Special Exhibition on Modern Korean Painting at the National Museum. After reading an article in The Times related to Pablo Picasso’s painting Massacre in Korea (1951), Kim published “Farewell to Picasso” in the first issue of Munhak yesul (Literature and Art) in 1954. He also devoted himself to art practice, art education, and art theory by teaching at Seoul National University, Seoul Arts High School, and the Institute of Contemporary Art and participating in the first Contemporary Art Exhibit hosted by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper company. He was commissioner of the Paris Biennale in 1961. In 1965, as the board president of Korean Fine Arts Association, he worked as commissioner and judge of the São Paulo Biennale. At the time, he moved to the U.S. and settled in Saratoga, New York, where he absorbed himself in creating artworks for twenty years until he returned home. In 1986, he held a solo exhibition at the Gana Gallery in Seoul. In 1989 he returned to the U.S. and Kim returned to South Korea permanently in 2014 for the MMCA’s exhibition Kim Byungki: The Distribution of Sensible. In 2022, he passed away at the age of 106. Among his notable works are Street Trees (1947), Still Life by Window (1954), Mountain (1967), Forest and Still Life (1987), and Winter Scene (2000).
Find More
Sign Up for Email Updates
