작업 소개

57STUDIO는 국립현대미술관의 열린강좌 프로그램 중 미술관 소장품 강좌 시리즈를 제작하였습니다. 윤범모 관장이 직접 작품을 설명하는 형식으로 구성하였으며, 실제 교육 현장에서 효과적인 학습 자료로 활용될 수 있도록 제작되었습니다. 또한, 어느 장면을 캡처하더라도 교육 자료로서의 기능이 충실히 전달될 수 있도록 화면을 구성하였습니다. 이 시리즈는 작가 12명의 작품을 조명하며, 매주 수요일 YouTube LIVE를 통해 공개되었습니다.

57STUDIO produced the Museum Collection Lecture Series as part of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s (MMCA) open lecture program. The series was structured in a format where Director Yoon Bum-mo personally explains each artwork, ensuring its effectiveness as a valuable educational resource for use in learning environments.

The videos were designed so that every frame could function as an informative material, regardless of where it was captured. This series highlights the works of 12 artists and was released weekly via YouTube LIVE every Wednesday.

Lee Qoede, Portrait of a Women, 1940s

Today, we are going to take a look at Portrait of a Woman by Lee Qoede. Every time I say his name -Lee Qoede- I feel a subtle reverberation in my heart. That’s because his life was very turbulent, even though he was one of Korea’s greatest painters of the 20th century. He studied in Japan during the colonial period, and then after independence, he defected to North Korea where he was active for a while before he died. Lee Qoede’s art resonates in many different ways. With his talent for depicting the human body, he advanced the style of realism, but his art also reflects the social conditions of his era. He can be considered a master painter who aimed to enact a new world of art.

Born in Chilgok, North Gyeongsang Province, Lee Qoede spent his childhood in Daegu. Lee Qoede was from a large landlord’s family, and could thus afford to study in Japan at the Imperial Art Institute, which is now Musashino Art University. After graduation, Lee established Sinmisulga hyeopoe (Association of New Korean Artists), an art group for Koreans in the 1940s.The Association of New Korean Artists was composed of artists from private schools, rather than government schools(- such as the Tokyo Fine Arts School). So these artists had more diverse, liberal, and progressive styles.Lee Qoede was a type of chairman or moderator for, provided excellent leadership and social concern hat was reflected in the group’s works and activities.

But Lee’s life took a dramatic turn during the Korean War, when he was taken as a “North Korean” prisoner and sent to the POW camp in Geoje. Upon his release, he chose to go to Pyongyang, North Korea, despite the fact that his family was in Seoul. At first, he was active in the art field of Pyongyang, before disappearing from the forefront. Since Lee had defected to North Korea, South Koreans were not allowed to discuss him or his career in the second half of 20th century, due to the strong feelings of anti-communism. After the ban was finally lifted in 1988, Lee Qoede’s works,which were still in the possession of his family, were unveiled for the first time in the early 1990s. It was a huge event in the Korean art field at the time. Many people in the art world who had never seen Lee Qoede’s major works in person were amazed that he had produced these large oil masterpieces under the harsh conditions of Japanese colonial rule. They were equally impressed by his skills for portraying the human body and his spirit of realism. As such, Lee Qoede was recognized as one of the great Korean artists of the 20th century.

Today, we have about 60 extant oil paintings and 300 drawings by Lee Qoede. From these works alone, we can see that he is a giant of 20th-century art. Initially after he defected, Lee was active in North Korea, but he was soon blacklisted, so that the later part of his life was very difficult. In Pyongyang, a biographical dictionary entitled Korean Artists Handbook was published in the late 1990s. While Lee Qoede was omitted from the first edition, he was reinstated for the second edition. Since his life closely mirrored the division of North and South Korea, Lee can be seen as a symbol for our national tragedy.

This painting contains all the characteristics of Lee Qoede’s style. It exemplifies the main features of his style of depicting the human body with great precision and confidence. This portrait of a woman shows her upper body wearing a fine red traditional top called a “jeogori.” Although it is relatively small compared to some of Lee Qoede’s other paintings, it has an excellent structure and unique composition. The background was rendered in black, thus emphasizing the woman’s facial expression. Because he drew so accurately, Lee Qoede was able to emphasize his brushstrokes in parts of the outlines, and to show off his boldness and confidence in shading. His skills for realistic depiction are what enabled him to do this.

In the 1930s, Lee Qoede produced narrative-based works and then after independence, he painted the masterpieces of his Group Portrait series. Such works resonate with the sheer size and dynamism of the figures on the pictorial plane. While these figure paintings carry the general aura of Western classicism, all of the people are Koreans, and the backgrounds reflect the Korean society of the time. As the creator of the Group Portrait series, Lee was one of the greatest portraitists of the 20th century. In some ways, he was a bit of a romantic in his approach to revolutionary realism, but at the same time, he always strived to forge his own style. After all, Lee Qoede is a painter born in the era of division. Although not generally considered to be one of Lee Qoede’s major works, this painting still carries a deep resonance. That’s why Portrait of a Woman is a work by Lee Qoede that I can proudly recommend s one of the highlights of our museum’s collection.