Yoo Youngkuk (劉永國; denoted as YYK) is a pioneer of the modern art in Korea and the first abstract painter. Yoo Younkuk and Kim Whanki (金煥基) are regarded as two grand masters of Korean abstract painting.
Born in a well-to-do family in Uljin, YYK graduated from the oil painting department of the Bunka Gakuin University (文化學院) in Tokyo (1938), where he encountered abstract painting from the West and decided to be an abstract painter. Interacting closely with Murai Masanarihttp://www.muraimasanari.com/|Murai Masanari and Hasegawa Saburo,http://www.artnet.com/artists/saburo-hasegawa/past-auction-results|Hasegawa Saburo pioneers of Japanese abstract painting, YYK participated actively in avant-garde movements in Japan and became a fellow of the Association of Free Artists (自由美術家協會, AFA).
After eight years of stay in Tokyo, YYK returned to Korea in 1943. Years later (1948), he founded the “Sinsasil-pa (新寫實派, New Realism Group)” with Kim Whanki and Lee Kyusang (李揆祥), the first avant-garde group in Korea, and taught at the Seoul National University as a professor for two years. However, YYK couldn't engage in painting for more than a decade due to social turbulence during the Pacific and Korean wars.
When he resumed his painting career after the war, modern art in Korea was in its embryonic stage, and YYK played a major role in setting the overall direction as well as contextualizing and fixating modern art in Korea by organizing various groups and participating in exhibitions. Mountain was a favorite motif of his paintings, and he became known as “the painter of mountains”.
After the Sao Paulo biennial in 1963, YYK withdrew from group activities and focused on solo exhibitions which were held every other year for two decades. The painting style was changed from color fields to geometric forms and so on, and the style uniquely attributed to him nowadays was created in this period. The first solo exhibition held in 1964 firmly established him as the leading abstract painter and the 8th exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in 1979 was the summing-up of his career featuring major works made throughout his life.
From the sixties on, YYK suffered from numerous illnesses and was confined to activities in a wheelchair, but he continued to paint until 3 years before his death at the age of eighty-six. A survey of twenty art critics on the artistry of leading artists by Monthly Art (月刊美術) magazine evaluated YYK as the most outstanding among over a hundred artists in Korea.
Strong lines and colorful planes forming geometrical shapes are a symbol of YYK’s paintings where vibrant colors, metaphysical patterns, and well-planned structural compositions are integrated to illuminate the sublimity and solemnity of nature.
Early life YYK was born in 1916, six years after the annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire, in Uljin, a city on the east coast located at the end of Taebaek mountains in Gangwon province, as the third son (sixth of eight children) between Yoo Moonjong (1876–1946) and Hwang Dongho (1880–1963). Yoo Moonjong was a land proprietor in Uljin who engaged mainly in agriculture, as well as fishery and brewery businesses. Yoo Moonjong provided substantial military rations to General Shin Dol-seok at the end of the Korean Empire (1906) and founded Jedong Elementary School (1922).
After graduating Uljin elementary school, YYK left home at the age of thirteen, in order to study at Chei Kobo (第2高普, No. 2 High School of Gyeongseong, currently Kyungbok Middle and High School) in Seoul. The subject YYK liked most at school was mathematics and he did not show particular interest in fine art classes or participated in extracurricular activities on art. However, Sato Kunio,Inspired by their former teacher Sato Kunio, YYK and his five fellow alumni from Chei Kobo [i.e., Chang Ucchin, Kim Chang Euk (金昌億), Lim Wan Kyu (林完圭), Lee Daewon (李大源), and Kwon Okyeon (權玉淵)] established the 2-9 Group in 1961. The “2” refers to No. “2” High School at Gyeongseong, while the “9” (in Korean, “ku”) is a homonym with the first syllable of their teacher’s name. a Japanese art teacher, earned the respect of Korean students due to his open-minded and liberal personality and influenced many students to become artists. It was not a coincidence that Chei Kobo graduated many masters of Korean modern art who learned from Sato Kunio during this period.
In colonial days, students were required to speak only Japanese at school, keenly watched by Japanese teachers and often beaten for misdemeanors. One day in his graduation year, YYK was beaten by his teacher over refusing to spy on fellow students. Being already disenchanted with the repressive atmosphere of the school, YYK quit the school days after and went to Japan for further study with the support of his father. Becoming a captain of a cargo ship and traveling the world freely was the future goal when YYK went to Japan. However, he had to change his plan because the merchant marine academy at Yokohama, which YYK wished to enter, required a high school diploma for an application. Instead, YYK decided to enter the oil painting department of the Bunka Gakuin University in Tokyo, an art school known for its liberal campus atmosphere and policies.
Tokyo Period (1935–1943)
Bunka Gakuin It was at Bunka Gakuin that YYK first encountered western art and learned about works of old masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, and others from artbooks at the school. Amazed at the exquisiteness of their work, YYK thought that there was nothing more for him to add to the traditional field, and decided to pursue something completely different, abstract painting from the start. There was no professor who majored in abstract painting at Bunka Gakuin at the time.
The avant-garde movement in Japan already started in the 1920s, and by the time YYK arrived at Tokyo (1935) Russian futurism and constructivism were widely permeated to Japanese art scenes. Hasegawa Saburo and Murai Masanari, who had been to Paris, were leading Japanese avant-garde movements, and also organizers of the Association of Free Artists (AFA). Murai Masanari was ten years senior to YYK at Bunka Gakuin University and became a close associate of him. YYK had lifelong respect toward Murai Masanari as a college senior and fellow artist.
YYK made his debut as an artist at the 7th exhibition of the Independent Artists Association (獨立美術家協會) in 1937 and actively participated in Jiyu-ten (自由展, exhibition of Association of Free Artists) which was organized by AFA. YYK won the prize of the society at the second exhibition (1938) and became a fellow. The experience of participating actively in the mainstream of the Japanese avant-garde movement provided YYK with a solid basis for his future activities in Korea. Unfortunately, YYK’s works made in Tokyo days were all lost during the Korean War except for some relief works. For the 8th solo exhibition in 1979, YYK reproduced reliefs from remaining postcards with the help of Yoo Lizzy,Yoo Lizzy (1945–2013). Former professor at Seoul National University College of Fine Arts, founder of Chiwoo Craft Museum, currently Yoo Lizzy Craft Museum. ("유리지공예관") his daughter and a metalcraft artist. The originals were produced in the late 1930s, not much later than Piet Mondrian and Jean Arp, leaders of Abstraction-Création group in Paris, showing that YYK was keenly aware of French avant-garde movements and tried to join the most cutting-edge trends.
Photography During World War II in Japan, artists were forced to work on documentary war paintings, and Hasegawa Saburo, a close associate of YYK, unwilling to comply with the policy, chose to work on photography instead. YYK completed the photography class at the Oriental Photography School in Tokyo (1940) and exhibited photo works at the 6th exhibition of the Association of Art Creators (formerly AFA), which portrayed mostly historical remains of Gyeongju, the old capital of the Silla dynasty. Photography was a life-long hobby of YYK. YYK later mentioned that he learned photography because he thought photographers had better chances of finding jobs than artists during the wartime.
The Blank Period (1943–1955) YYK came back to Korea in the middle of the Pacific war, and several years later the Korean war broke out. Longer than a decade YYK had to work just to survive and support his family of six. YYK married Kim Kisoon of Seoul by an arranged marriage one year after his return and the couple had two daughters and two sons.
Before the Korean War (1943~1950) As the Pacific war became fiercer, it became difficult for YYK to stay in Tokyo longer and he came back to Uljin (1943). There being no proper job for him and not wanting to depend on his father, YYK engaged in the fishing business for five years at Jukbyeon–a fishing port near Uljin using a fishing boat owned by his father. The boat carried about ten fishermen on it, and YYK often went fishing with them all around the Sea of Japan for months. He was quite skillful in gathering information and tracing the right fishing grounds and his boat used to make the largest catch around the area. The experience of working at sea and observing the wild nature closely affected the spirit of the artist, and sceneries of sunrise and sunset, interplay of sunlight with the sea, and mountains seen from the ocean became favorite motifs of his work throughout life.
When Kim Whanki, a close associate of YYK since his Tokyo days and an assistant professor at the College of Fine Arts of the Seoul National University (SNU) at the time, asked YYK to join the university as a full-time lecturer (1948), he went up to Seoul. That year, YYK formed Sinsasil-pa with Kim Whanki and Lee Kyusang and held the 1st exhibition in Seoul.The last exhibition of Sinsasil-pa was held at Busan during wartime. Even though small in number, all members were experienced in avant-garde movements in Japan and their manifesto of fine art based on the concept of pure forms, for the first time in Korea, left lasting impacts on the modern art movement of Korea.
Korean War During the three months when Seoul was occupied by North Korean Army (June 28~Sep. 28, 1950) and the following several months after restoration of the city, YYK and his family had to suffer extreme hardships. On the brink of the second occupation of Seoul (January 1951) they took refuge to Uljin, but economic situation was no better. Standing at the frontline of living, YYK took over a brewery factory of his father at Jukbyeon that was abandoned and not operating for years. After a repair, he resumed liquor production and worked as a laborer as well as an entrepreneur. To his luck, demands for liquors soared up as many refugees from North Korea flocked into the area, and by hard work and business skill YYK became the most prosperous man in town within few years. The business was going well, but YYK quit the business to paint again and moved up to Seoul. YYK was 39 years old and had been out of painting for twelve years when he decided to resume his career. Later he lamented the period as "a lost decade". However, continuing income from the brewery business, which he left to others to manage, supported YYK for the next two decades when abstract paintings made no money, and let him concentrate on painting full time. All the works of YYK made before the Korean War were destroyed during the war except two and works shown at the 3rd exhibition of Sinsasil-pa were later found in bad shape and subsequently restored.
Pursuit of Abstract Art (1955–1999)