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.

Gu Bonung, Portrait of a Friend, 1935

Today, we’ll see a unique painting. It is Portrait of a Friend by Gu Bonung. The painting style is very unusual. A close look at this oil painting reveals a remarkably free use of brush strokes. In the mid-1930s, there were a lot of painting styles trying new artistic approaches. In the 1910s, pioneers of oil painting such as Ko Huidong appeared. As small groups increasingly emerged in the 1920s, a kind of art scene formed, and new painting styles developed. In the 1930s, this creative tendency was in full bloom showing variety in the art scene. This was the situation before the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937. The period from the start of the war to the end of Japanese occupation in 1945 could be called a dark age, but before that, the art scene in Korea seemed to blossom.

Gu Bonung painted this piece. Because of a nanny’s mistake in his childhood, Gu got handicapped. At that time, he was known by the derogatory moniker “hunchback” and became a very peculiar painter, engaging his entire life in painting with a crippled body. In reference to Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) in Paris, Gu was known as the “Toulouse-Lautrec of Seoul.’ Gu was active in many fields beyond painting, including writing. His friends included many painters of various styles as well as members of the literary scene of the time.

In the 1930s, there emerged a new painting style different from ‘academism’ a conservative painting style led by the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and by government schools. Gu’s work is an example of this new wave. At that time, his work was commented to be reminiscent of Fauvism and Expressionism. However, it is more appropriate to say that Gu opened up a new direction in art, different from conservative styles, rather than fitting him into existing classifications.

Let’s look at his work, Portrait of a Friend, known to be painted around 1935. As the title says, the subject filling the canvas is the artist’s friend. Free and bold brushstrokes reveal the personality of the sitter. We can see that the artist tried to express the character intensely. First of all, the friend is wearing a hat called ‘beret’ crookedly. Also, we can see a pipe in his mouth. The smoke and the red color at the end of the pipe indicates that he is currently smoking. A close look at the mouth shows a red treatment of the lips, and the nose is highlighted with a lighter color. On the other hand, the part around the lips is painted in black, creating a dynamic of the scene and the contrast of light and dark. The overall contour of the character is not painted clearly but expressed without a distinct boundary from the background. We can see how much the artist endeavored to express the personality of the subject in the painting. Basically, the brush strokes are quite free and bold. Therefore they are reminiscent of Fauvism as well as Cubism in a sense. The practice lets us know that the artist attempted to interpret the figure of the friend in such a style.

The man in the painting is known to be poet Lee Sang (Kim Hae-kyeong, 1910-1937). Lee is an outstanding writer in the history of Korean literature. He is one of the great artists at the top of the literary scene known for excellent work such as Crow’s Eye View Poem and a short story entitled Wings. When Lee went to Tokyo at around the age of twenty-seven, he was confined as a rebellious Korean who didn’t obey Japanese rule. He also suffered from tuberculosis. In the end, he passed away at an early age. Lee said, “The one with no secrets is poor.” In fact, we can see that there is a secret in this painting as well. We do not precisely know what motivated the artist to create this work or how the work passed down to this day.

We only know that this work was found in the family’s house and began to be known in the art scene from the 1970s. The public became aware of the painting when the piece was introduced as the cover image for a monthly magazine entitled Literature and Thought. The work reveals a painter and a writer. Gu expressed the features of the inner world of poet Lee Sang in his painting. Gu left various works, including an oil painting Woman with a more vibrant style as well as paintings with Buddhist and folk motifs. However, he couldn’t fully pursue his painting ambition since he died at an early age of 47. Together, we appreciated Portrait of a Friend by Gu Bonung, who is one of the representative Korean painters of the 1930s.