WHANKI KIM (1913-1974)
Whanki Kim started with abstraction in the 1930’s. A fresh graduate of the Fine Arts Department of Nihon University in Tokyo, he was given his first solo show by Amagi Gallery in 1937. To gain any exposure to European modernism it was imperative to study in Japan, where artists who had worked abroad were now teaching back home, as Kim himself was to do in Seoul at the National University in the late 40s and at Hongik University in the 1950s. Foreign travel was strictly limited by the Korean authorities until the 1980s, a constraint that intensified competition among Korean artists to participate in a handful of international expositions, the principal being Sao Paulo, and that made it all the more difficult to secure international recognition and sponsorship.
Kim moved to New York in 1963 direct from the 7th Sao Paulo Biennale, where he represented Korea and won Honorable Mention for painting. Helped by a Rockefeller Foundation grant for one year, he was able to take stock of the city’s lively art community. Kim was put off by the commercialism and vapidity he saw in much of American abstract and Pop art, striving to invest his non-narrative work with emotive power of poetry and music. In Korea, Kim was creating a sensation with the work he shipped back, particularly an artist in his late 50s still breaking new ground. In New York, he was making a name for himself, gradually securing gallery representation and critical support. Kim’s fifteenth solo exhibition took place at Asia House Galleries in 1964 and his twenty-first, “100,000 Dots,” at Poindexter Gallery in 1973.
While living in Paris from 1956 to 1959 he had three exhibitions in Europe: at M. Benezit Gallery in Paris, Muratore Gallery in Nice, and Cheval de Verre Gallery in Brussels. When he returned to Seoul in 1959 he had one person exhibitions at the Korea Information Center Gallery and at the Bando Gallery. Kim’s work features centrally in the Guggenheim Museum’s groundbreaking September 2023 exhibition, Only The Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s.
Kim’s work has been showing continuously in the Americas, Europe and East Asia for seven decades, including two special exhibitions at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1965 and 1977 and retrospectives on the tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth and thirteenth anniversaries of his death in 1974.
SU KWAK (B.1949)
Born in Busan, Korea, Su Kwak grew up near the seashore and the mountains of her native country. She moved to the United States in 1973 where she attended college at the University of St. Thomas in Houston and later completed her MFA with honors at the University of Chicago. She is represented by June Kelly Gallery and HK Art and Antiques Gallery in New York City. Kwak is known for imbuing her paintings with a message of healing and hope. The painting surface is created with an inventive use of collage and paint to capture phenomena of light.
Lilly Wei, the New York-based art critic for ARTnews writes that “light has been the subject of Korean-born Su Kwak’s paintings from the beginning of her more than three decades of artistic endeavor, both as a natural phenomenon and as a metaphor for the spiritual and ineffable…In many ways, her works function as a meditation and a prayer, a talisman and an offering, a deeply felt search for meaning and spiritual redemption through art…Her recent body of work has affiliations to works such as Blake’s heavenly visions, Turner’s roiled seascapes and Constable’s cloud studies (the latter two verging on pure abstraction), and more recently to Dorothea Rockburne’s vividly colored, cosmological images.”
Kwak’s paintings are in the permanent collections of leading museums in Korea and America, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Korea, the Seoul Museum of Art, the Busan Museum of Art, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, the Brauer Museum of Art in Indiana and in the personal collection of National Museum of Women in the Arts founder Wilhelmina Holladay. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Korea, including a recent traveling retrospective exhibition at the Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. Kwak’s exhibitions for 2019 were at the Brauer Museum of Art (August 21 to December 9, 2019) as well as HK Art and Antiques Gallery (September, 2019) and June Kelly Gallery (September 6 to October 2019) in New York City.
TSCHANGYEUL KIM (1929-2021)
Tschangyeul Kim was a well-known artist in Korea, the United States and France. Born in Seoul, Kim studied at the Colleage of Fine Arts, Seoul National University from 1948 to 1950. He also studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1965 to 1968. In 1969 he moved to Paris exhibiting at the 2nd Paris Biennale in 1961 and at the 8th Sao Paulo Biennale in 1965. From 1972 to 1976 he participated in the Salon de Mai, Paris. In 1976 and 1979 he had one-person exhibitions at Hyundai Gallery, Seoul. He also exhibited at the Tate Gallery, Liverpool in 1992 and he had retrospective at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul in 1993. In 1994 he had another retrospective at the Sunje Museum, Kyung ju, Korea. He had one-person exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, Paris in 2004. His paintings were exhibited in Beijing in 2005. Kim lived and worked in Seoul and Paris.
KIM TCHAH-SUP (1940-2022)
Kim took his subject—fields of harsh stones—from photos he took before he left Korea for the United States in 1974. He used them first for his silkscreen print “Situation” in 1970, before adapting it to paintings. His recent work explores the symbolic relationship between the natural world and (pi), a transcendental number used to express ratios in mathematics, physics and chemistry.
The artist was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. His family moved to Gyeongju, Korea, in 1944. He graduated from Seoul National University in 1963 and received his MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. He has had one-person exhibitions at the Associated American Artists Gallery, New York, in 1977, the Space Gallery, Seoul, in 1979 and 1984, the Iteza Gallery, Kyoto, in 1986 and the Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, in 1993, Marronnier Art Center, Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, Seoul, in 2002, and in the “Lee Joongsub Award Show” at the Choson Il-bo Museum, Seoul, in 2003. His work was exhibited in “Acquisitions ’73-’76,” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in “30 Years of American Printmaking,” at The Brooklyn Museum in 1974, and “Six Artists from Korea,” at Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York, in 1995. Kim’s work has been shown in 5 exhibitions at HK Art and Antiques; the March 2017 inaugural exhibition, November 2018, May 2019, a 2020 virtual exhibition, and the September 2023 exhibition Two Friends: Tchah Sup Kim and Cho Yong-ik. Kim also features in the Guggenheim Museum’s groundbreaking September 2023 exhibition, Only The Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s. Kim’s work is in the collection of the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwachon, Korea, the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Brooklyn Museum, and the Cincinnati Art Museum, among others. Kim died in 2022.
CHO TAIKHO (B. 1957)
Born in Chungnam province, Korea, Cho graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1988. He has had one-person exhibitions at Galerie Pierre Lescot, Paris, in 1987, 1989 and 1992; Gallery Sigma, New York, in 1990; Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, in 1991; Gallery Bhak, Seoul, in 1993 and 1995; Galerie Gana-Beaubourg, Paris, in 2001; Gallery Insa Art Center, Seoul, in 2003; Gana Art Gallery, Seoul, in 2012; and a solo exhibition at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2021.
BOHNCHANG KOO (B. 1953)
Bohnchang Koo currently lives and works in Seoul. Thematically dealing with the passage of time in his work, he captures still and fragile moments to reveal the unseen breath of life. Since 2004, Koo has photographed Korean Joseon white porcelains in his vessel series which highlight the beauty of Korea’s cultural heritage.
Bohnchang Koo attended Yonsei University majoring in Business Administration in Korea and later studied photography in Germany. Presently he is professor at Kyungil University. His works have been exhibited in over 40 solo exhibitions and are in numerous public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Art, Houston; the Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art; Musee Guimet, Paris; the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea. His work was displayed in a solo exhibition at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in March 2020. He was an artistic director for 2008 Daegu Photo Biennale and one of the collaborating curators for Photoquai 2013, Paris and also a nominator for Discovery Award of 2014 Arles photo festival. He is the author of “Deep Breath in Silence”, “Revealed Personas”, “Vessels for the Heart”, “Hysteric Nine”, “Vessel”, and “Everyday Treasures”.
GEEJO LEE (B. 1959)
Geejo Lee was born in Korea on the island of Jeju. He earned a BFA and MFA at Seoul National University. Inspired by the traditional beauty of Joseon period white porcelains, he brings a fresh and modern interpretation to his work. He participated in numerous group exhibitions including the “Constancy & Change in Korean Traditional Craft 2014”, at the Triennale di Milano, the “White Porcelains and Whanki notebooks” at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2018, and “Jjiggo Bingo Geurida” at Cho Eun Sook Gallery, Seoul, in 2020. Lee’s works are in the collections of the Jin Ro Culture Foundation, Seoul; Gwangju Joseon Royal Kiln Museum, Gwang-ju city; Yeoju Ceramic Art Museum Gyeonggi-do; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He currently teaches at Chungang University.
LEE UNGNO (1904-1989)
Lee Ungo went to Japan in 1935 and studied Western-style painting at the Kawabata Art School and at the Hongo Painting Academy in Tokyo. By 1958 he had numerous one-person and group exhibitions in Korea, Japan, the United States, and Europe. In 1989 and 1994 his work was exhibited at the Ho-Am Art Museum (Leeum Samsung Museum of Art), Seoul.
HAI JA BANG (B.1937)
Bang Hai Ja lives and works both in Paris and in Seoul. She has lived in France since 1961 and she is a part of the first generation of Korean abstract painters. She finds her roots outside her country and uses them in her work. East and West are linked in the use of materials she works with : Korean traditional paper, ochre soil of Provence, natural pigments. Bang Hai Ja tries to capture the luminous energy of the cosmos ” the energy that comes from the act of painting is a true force that gives the strength to the soul of the one who is looking at a painting.”
Bang Hai Ja received the award of sacred art at the Monte-Carlo International Grand Prix Exhibition, Monaco. She was awarded with the medal for arts in the city Montrouge, Grand Prix of foreign artists of Korea, and received the Order of Arts and Letters by the Korean President in October 2010. In 2012, she received the France-Korea Cultural Award and the Excellency Award for culture and arts by the International Foundation of Korean women (KoWinner) in Romania. In 2015-2016 her works were exhibited in the Cernuschi Museum during the exhibition Seoul Paris Seoul, in connection with the year of Korea in France. Her works featured in a group show at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2018.
“I would like that through these pigments, the matter becomes light, that it transfers energy to the viewer, gives him an internal smile”. Even though she is always fascinated by the new tendencies of the Western contemporary art, Bang Hai Ja has never stopped looking for her light, with a traditional and virtuoso savoir-faire or with the use of the famous Korean paper and the great mastery of calligraphy. On the one hand, with her art Bang Hai Ja is approaching deep spirituality of Buddhists monasteries, and on the other hand – the art of fresco, of stained glass or also of the icons or poetry.
ELIZABETH KEITH (1887-1956)
Elizabeth Keith was a Scottish printmaker and watercolorist. Her work consists of prints depicting Asian life and culture, a fascination she acquired when she traveled to Tokyo at the age of 28. She would continue her travels throughout Asia, visiting China, Korea, and the Philippines, gathering more subjects for her artwork. Born in Scotland, Ireland in 1887, Keith was a self-taught artist. She learned the methods of traditional Japanese woodblock printing, emulating the work of Katsushika Hokusai, Ando Hiroshige, and Kitagawa Utamaro. Keith’s work gained popularity not only in Japan, but also in London and New York. Landscapes, people in traditional and common dress, and cultural rituals were central to her imagery. She died in 1956 in the United States.
Her work appeared in a group show at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2018.
TRICIA WRIGHT (B. 1962)
Tricia Wright was born in England and attended art schools in London, where she lived with her family before relocating to New York in 1999. She divides her time between her studio practice in Kingston, New York and NYC, where she works at Judd Foundation. Tricia is also a freelance editor/writer; her most recent solo production American Art & Artists was published by Harper Collins in association with the Smithsonian Institute. She has worked at several art historical sites including the Glass House (CT) where she designed the Art Focus Tour, and as Interpretive Specialist at Olana and Lyndhurst (NY). She is also a private art guide, creating specialized tours of NYC museums and galleries. Her works are in museum, corporate, and private collections in New York and the UK. Her works were also featured in a group show at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2018.
PARK SOOKEUN (B. 1914-1965)
At the age of twelve, Park Sookeun encountered a reproduction of Millet’s Angelus that made a profound impression on his artistic imagination. At eighteen, he won a prize in the Western Painting section of the 11th government-sponsored Joseon Art Exhibition for a watercolor of farmers in spring. An oil version of this work gained him entry to the 18th Joseon Art Exhibition in 1939, when he was twenty-four. Self-tutored in art and with only an elementary-school education, Park committed himself to painting in the face of sever financial hardship. He took a job painting portraits of GIs at the PX of the US Eighth Army, in 1952, because it paid better than his position as a middle-school art teacher. With his earnings he bought a tiny hut as a studio and continued to participate in sponsored exhibitions. By the mid-fifties his work was attracting a wider circle, including a UNESCO exhibition in San Francisco and group shows in New York and Tokyo. His career was cut short by his premature death from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of fifty-one in 1965.
Park Sookeun paintings are unique. His body of work is thought to be small, perhaps no more than four hundred paintings. Modest in scale, somber and roughly textured, they are at first glance unassuming and unpretentious. These very qualities, combined with the abstract, simplified rendering of his idyllic–now iconic–scenes of everyday life, give his work their power and poetry.
Park’s work was widely appreciated by Americans stationed in Seoul during the 1960s. Now it is prized by Korean private collectors and institutions and has toured the world in exhibitions of Korean modernism. Founded by an American, the Bando Gallery at the Choson Hotel near the American embassy began exhibiting his paintings in 1955, selling them for nominal sums to clients who were predominantly Americans.
NAM KWAN (1911-1990)
Nam Kwan was born in Chongsong, North Kyungsang Province, and graduated from Taiheiyo Fine Arts school in Tokyo in 1935. He had one person exhibitions at the Tonghwa Gallery in Seoul from 1948 to 1950 and in 1954 at the Midopa Gallery. While living in Paris from 1955 to 1967 he had one-person exhibitions at Galerie Transposition, Paris in 1964 and Galerie Mensch, Hamburg in 1966. His work was exhibited at the “Contemporary Art Exhibition” in Milan in 1983 and 1984 at the ” FIAC 84″ in Paris as well as in an invitational exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris.
WOONG KIM
Kim had six one-person exhibitions at the Addison/Ripley Gallery in Washington, D.C., between 1982 and 1997. In 1985 he had one-person exhibitions at the Rark Ryu Sook Gallery, the Space Gallery, and the Hilton Gallery, Seoul. He had four one-person exhibitions at the M-13 Gallery, New York, between 1989, 2000, and 2004. He had a solo show at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2019. His paintings were exhibited at the Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art in Kyonju in 1991 and in the “Interior Landscape,” at the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, in 1988.
SOOYEUN HONG
Born in 1967, Sooyeon Hong was exposed to painting from an early age by her mother who was an art teacher in Seoul, Korea. After earning her undergraduate and graduate degree in Western Painting at Hongik University, known to have the most sophisticated program in the nation, she proceeded to further build and solidify her artistic style at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, where she got her M.F.A. She currently resides in Seoul, Korea.
Hong has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Notable solo shows were at Indipress in Seoul and NYB Gallery in Kirkland, WA. Her work appeared in a group show at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2020.
Her works are in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Korea, the Seoul National University Museum of Art, and the Kumho Museum of Art among others.
OUHI CHA
Born in Busan, Korea in 1945, Ouhi Cha received her BFA from Chung-ang University, Seoul in 1985. She moved to Germany and painted in Berlin since 1981.
Cha has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Korea, Japan and Germany.
She had one-person exhibitions at the Gallery Georg Nothelfer, Berlin (1990-2017); at the Gallery Shirota, Tokyo (1994, 1997 and 2000); at the Watergate Gallery, Seoul and Chang Art, Beijing, in 2010. Her works also appeared in a group show at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in 2020.
Her works are in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Samsung Museum of Art Leeum, Seoul, Busan City Museum, Pusan and Kupferstichkabinette, Berlin among others.
Cha has often compared her personal life to travel. Her “The ship of Odyssey” in the early 1990s, “Stray Thought on Sails” in the late 1990s, and “Sail as Wing” in the 2000s all show that the keyword of her art is travel.
WONSOOK KIM
Kim was born in Busan and Received her MFA from Illinois State University in 1976. Since 1976 she has had numerous one-person and group exhibitions including at the Myungdong Gallery, Seoul, in 1976, Gallery Yeh, Seoul, in 1983, 1991, 1997 and 2000, Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Seoul, in 1993, Allrich Gallery, San Francisco, in 1993, Walsh Gallery, Chicago, in 1998, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, in 2004, 2006 and 2012, Kong Gan Gallery, Busan, in 2005 and 2014, McCormick Gallery, Chicago, in 2001 and 2006, and Arrario Gallery, New York, in 2009. Her painting series Passages and Wings of Grace were shown at George Berges Gallery, New York in 2017 and 2018. Her work was exhibited at the FIAC International Art Fair, Paris, in 1996 and at Kang Collection Korean Art, New York, in 2007. In 2021 she is having a one-person exhibition at Gallery Yeh, Seoul, and she is featured in a group show at HK Art and Antiques, New York, in November.
Kim moved to the United States in the early 1970s. She lives and works in Maryland.
YOON KWANG-CHO
Yoon graduated from the Ceramics department at Hong Ik University, Seoul in 1973. The next year he was awarded a grant by the Korean government to study at a kiln in Karatsu on Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan, where Korean potters first worked in the mid-16th century. Yoon’s work recalls the Punch’ong pottery of Korea’s 15th and 16th centuries. He shapes his forms from red clay by hand and decorates them with liquid clay, or white slip. While the clay is still wet he may give the form texture from a wood paddle or incise the surface with a nail or knife. Yoon has exhibited frequently, including solo shows at the Kyoto Craft Center gallery in 1986, the Ho-Am Art Museum (Leeum Samsung Museum of Art), Seoul, in 1998 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2003.
CHO YONG-IK (1934-2023)
Born in 1934 in the Northern province of Bukcheong, Cho Yong-Ik later trained in the Seoul National University by the art historian, critic and painter Kim Byung-ki. Cho learnt the importance of ‘staying independent’, a concept that later on would be the core of his artistic practice within the Dansaekhwa group. His production, very influenced by his passion for collecting ancient Korean pottery and artifacts, marries perfectly with his will to change the country’s reality after a devastating war. As a core member of the most important rebellion against conventional practices in Korean recent history Mr Cho has become a leading figure in the international artistic arena. Living and working in South Korea, he held an exhibition, “Revealing the Void” at the Sugkok Leeum in Seoul in 2016. Further major exhibitions include the MMCA in Gwacheon and Seoul and the Museum. Arko Art Center/MIA in Seoul. Cho Yong-Ik’s works were exhibited in the 1967 and 1969 Paris Biennales and are now held in prestigious permanent collections such as National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Gwangju Museum of Art, Walkerhill Museum, Samsung Museum of Art, Leeum and Seoul Museum.
If we look at Cho Yong-ik’s works, we notice his brilliant sense of color and the movements vibrant with life, qualities that are absent in many of the artists from that period. We can also see the scratch works made by a combination of fingertips, brush and knife, and the wild energy spurting from his paintings.
KIM SOU (1919-2014)
Kim Sou, sometimes called Kim Heung-soo, was born in Hamheung in northern Korea. Kim is known for his idea of Harmonism, which alludes to the concept of yin and yang, and figures in his painting as the coexistence of figuration and abstraction. Kim came to this approach after decades of development. As a student in 1930s and in the early phase of his career, Kim began with representational paintings, colorfully depicting contemporary social and landscape scenes. Inspired by further studies in Paris during the late 1950s, he dabbled in Cubism, and when he lived in the United States from the late 1960s through the 1970s, he experimented widely in various abstract styles. Finally, he adopted the approach of Harmonism, a synthesis of abstract and figurative styles.
Kim had his first one-person exhibition at the Tonghwa Gallery, Seoul, in 1949. In 1955 he went to Paris to study oil painting at the Academie de la Grande Chaumière and exhibited regularly in the Salon d’Automne thereafter. In 1966 he had a one-person exhibition at Press Center Art Gallery, Seoul. His paintings were exhibited at the Woodmere Gallery in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1970, while he was an instructor in the Department of Education, Philadelphia Art Museum. He also taught at Moore College of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine arts in Philadelphia. In 1979, he participated in “Korean Modern Art of the 1950s” sponsored by the Korean Modern Art Gallery, Seoul. Kim was featured in a major exhibition and symposium on Cubism in Asia that traveled to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and the Singapore Art Museum between 2005 and 2006.
MYONG HI KIM (b. 1949)
Myong Hi Kim lives and works in New York and an abandoned schoolhouse in a tiny mountain village in Kangwon Province, South Korea. Highly regarded for her unconventional oil pastel on chalkboard works, she is best known for her multi-layered symbolist landscapes and portraits that fuse image, text and myth in imaginative narratives that span time and place. Raised in South Korea, Japan, and England, she was among the first wave of South Korean artists to move to New York, where she lived from 1975 until her return to Korea in 1990. She has been living in both places since then. She graduated from Seoul National University and studied at Pratt Institute, New York. Her recent solo exhibitions include: Art Projects International, New York (2015, 2012) and Gallery Hyundai, Seoul (2012). Her work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; Ho-Am Art Museum, Seoul; Whanki Museum, Seoul; Ewha Women’s University Museum, Seoul; Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Korea; and American University Museum, Washington, DC. Her work is represented in major public collections including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; National Assembly, Seoul; Whanki Museum, Seoul; Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; and Daejeon Museum of Art, Korea.
Chun Kyung-Ja (1924-2015)
Chun Kyung-Ja, perhaps the best-known woman painter in modern Korean art, was born in Gohung, South Korea in 1924.She moved to Japan in 1941, to study and Tokyo Women’s Academy of Fine Arts, where she developed technical skills and was trained in traditional colored ink painting. After her return to Korea, her work quickly came to include many of the motifs that persisted throughout her career, most notably female subjects, flowers, and animals. She received recognition and acclaim during the early period of her career, and yet in the 1950s her style evolved, moving away from a precise and realistic mode, toward a more colorful, painterly approach, for which she was later known. Alongside her development as an artist came significant political and personal turmoil, namely war and familial upheaval. Such struggles were reflected in her painting. Personal sorrow remained a theme even after she achieved stability as a professor at Hong-Ik University, and success as an artist. From 1969 Chun travelled widely, and portrayed in her work many of these scenes, particularly exotic landscapes and native women.
In 1978 Chun was selected as a member of the Korean National Academy of Arts, and she was awarded the prestigious Silver Crown Order of Merit by the Korean government in 1988. She finally retired from her artistic career in 1991, and died in 2015 after a period of illness during which she moved to New York to live with her daughter. The largest collection of Chun’s works are held at the Seoul Museum of Arts, including the 93 pieces she donated in 1998.