To
commemorate the 70th anniversary of Korea's Liberation, the MMCA has
organized the exhibition of artist Lee Quede, who dedicated himself to
representing our national and political turmoil that we encountered in the
period of liberation and inscribing into his canvases the social responsibility
and duty as an artist. This exhibition brings together all of his major works
and archives so that you could appreciate the essence of his art world intensively
and deeply.
Most
of Lee's works were
mainly produced over the span of 20 years from 1930 to 1950. This productive
period coincides with the most tragic times of the Korean history, when the
Japanese occupation, the Liberation and the Korean War consecutively happened.
Against the backdrop of the dark and disastrous times, Lee's artistic soul
started to flower. He opened up his own original and singular art world by
using Korean traditions and its national history as subjects, even though
Korean art circles were frozen and withered depending on the extreme upsurge of
Japanese military imperialism and the subsequent aftermath of the Pacific war.
After the liberation, when left and right ideologies collided with each other
and the Korean society was thrown into chaos, he poured out masterpieces as if
letting out a long-awaited breath at one time.
Although
the works in this exhibition were produced within a relatively short time span,
they show a wide spectrum with a variety of different and distinctive idioms.
However, one sharing feature is that they consistently contain the indomitable
will of our nation to overcome and survive the harsh hardships of the Japanese
occupation and the liberation. Through this exhibition, we hope that you could
lively experience Lee Quede's flaming affection for the people and his potent
and artistic demand to bear witness to our national history.
1.
Depicting Love: 1929-1937
Lee
Quede started to distinguish himself in the art field after meeting an artist
Jang Bal (1901-2001), who was his homeroom teacher at Hwimun gobo. In 1932, in
the 5th year of Hwimun gobo, Lee's
<Still Life> was selected by the 'Joseon Art Exhibition.' And then, after
the graduation, he entered the Imperial Art School in Japan, where he studied
painting in earnest, and took the first step into being a professional artist.
In
the senior year at Hwimun gobo, Lee Quede married Yu Gapbong and spent much
time with her while studying in Japan. He, putting a great interest upon a
figure painting, took his wife as a model and drew a considerable number of her
portraits. To him, his wife was like a 'muse' invigorating his artistic
inspiration. Lee's female figure paintings, which were sparked by his wife's
portraits, gradually and genuinely developed into representing images of
traditional Joseon women. Especially, later in his mature paintings, women have
a symbolic meaning for the tenacity of the Korean people who overcame and
survived the relentless destiny.
2.
Searching for Tradition: 1938-1944
In
1938, Lee Quede graduated from the Imperial Art School and submitted
<Destiny> for the 'Nikaten', one of the prestigious Japanese exhibitions.
In 1939 and 1940, he entered the same exhibition consecutively and solidified
his position as an artist. As a promising young artist, he returned to Korea.
And thereafter, in 1941, he founded the Joseon New Artist Association together
with Kim Jongchan, Mun Haksu, Kim Hakjun, Jin Huan, Lee Jungseop, Choi Jaedeok.
Lee
Quede painstakingly strived for finding out how to represent the color of
Korean traditional clothing with the Western painting style and technique. In
the beginning, the mood of his paintings was dark and mournful. Yet, after
returning to Korea and working with the Joseon New Artist Association, he, harmoniously
combining the techniques and color of traditional paintings with those of
western paintings, ultimately created his own idiosyncratic and peculiar
painting style. Technically speaking, he made a variety of artistic
experiments, boldly handling color planes, using bright and cheerful colors, or
emphasizing figures with black lines etc. With his superb draughtsmanship,
those experiments became a solid and primary base later for exploring a different
change more radically.
3.
Embracing an Era: 1945-1953
In
August 1945, Japanese occupation ended and the liberation came in. Amidst the
joy of liberation, Lee Quede was concerned about building up the direction of a
new national art. He thought that creating a new art entirely free from the
Japanese vestiges was the very urgent task given to him.
On
the basis of the solid skills he had accumulated over the years, Lee drew many
grand-scale paintings representing a dynamic mob scene of innumerable people.
These paintings focused on the disorderly entanglement of a multitude of people
clearly show his superb proficiency in a figure painting and his brilliant
formative sense. Through these paintings, Lee newly created a Korean style of
realism by absorbing various elements from the Renaissance art to the early
20th century Socialist realism and combining them with Korea's historical
situation and traditional colors. As such, Lee Quede's artistic mission to
testify the brutal fate of a nation and people blossomed into an idiomatic and
singular artwork. However, Lee's aspiring dream of developing a national art
sadly came to a halt, as the Korean War broke out.
