Past Exhibitions
Meeting again after 70 years: Lee Ungno and Park Seungmu is an exhibition which spotlights the exchanges that took place between two artists who shared the same space (Korea) and the same era: the 20th century, which was a period of tumultuous change for Korea. Lee Ungno (1904~1989) spent his career trying to modernize traditional Korean painting while Park Seungmu (1893~1980) chose to express his individuality within the stylistic confines of traditional painting, but each respected the other in the midst of maintaining their different creative stances. The purpose of this exhibition is to compare Lee and Park’s unique artistic worlds through juxtaposition.
In 2022, the Lee Ungno Research Institute highlighted the exchanges between Lee and Park, the latter being one of the “big six” in traditional Korean painting, through the archival project “Looking at Lee Ungno and Daejeon through Archives.” The reason for and circumstances of the friendship are unclear, but there is evidence that Lee, who operated a signboard shop (Gaecheoksa) in Jeonju at the time, assisted Park to ensure that the latter could host a solo exhibition in Jeonju in July 1934, such as by allowing part of his shop to be used by Park as a personal office. It is around this time that Park, in response, gifted Lee a painting entitled Cloudy Mountains in a Thousand Layers (Cheoncheopunsan). The letters sent back and forth between Seoul and Jeonju reveal that Lee and Park, despite their 11-year age difference, respected and supported one another in their art. Records of their participation in a 1945 exhibition at Deoksugung Palace (celebrating the country’s liberation from colonial rule), several other group exhibitions, and their joint creation of a painting in Mokpo give us invaluable insights into not only the professional relationship and personal friendship between the artists but also the post-1945 atmosphere within Korea’s traditional painting community.
Above all, this exhibition aims to provide an opportunity for visitors to see the similarities of and differences between the paintings of these two prestigious artists. Lee was a native of Hongseong-gun, South Chungcheong Province while Park was born in Okcheon, North Chungcheong Province. They engaged in creative activity not only in Seoul but throughout Korea, including Jeonju, Daejeon and Mokpo, and, in their final years, in Paris and Daejeon, respectively—winding life journeys which resulted in significant bodies of work for both. Lee’s and Park’s paintings were both inspired by nature and display their appreciation for it in addition to a desire to achieve, out of this view, a harmonious partnership between people and the natural world.
In the early years of their careers, both artists learned in the traditional way, seeking out teachers and observing the work of those teachers on a daily basis. It is after this learning phase that Lee and Park diverged. They slowly moved away from imitation and the conceptual world to focus on realistic depiction of real-life landscapes and objects. Lee produced paintings in a very unrestricted and free style, while Park’s works embodied his attention to detail and create a sophisticated mood.
The Lee Ungno Museum’s consistent efforts to identify artists who interacted with Lee aim to explore his influence, from an art history perspective, on Korea’s traditional painting community. We are pleased to invite the public to Meeting again after 70 years: Lee Ungno and Park Seungmu to gain a deeper understanding of the fascinating artistic worlds of two master painters and celebrate the 130th anniversary of Park’s birth.
