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Abstract
Seundja Rhee (1918–2009), celebrated in Korea and France, has remained largely unknown elsewhere. However, in the history of Korean women artists, especially those active abroad, she takes a remarkable place with achievements deserving reconsideration. Her six-decade career covered very distinctive stylistic periods, which she named: Figurative (1954–1956), Abstract (1957–1960), Woman and Earth (1961–1968), Superimposition (1969–1971), City (1972–1974), Yin and Yang (1975–1976), Nature (1977–1979), Road to the Antipodes (1980–1994), and Cosmos (1995–2008). This article groups Rhee’s oeuvre into four broader phases and examines her artistic development and life story.
Notes
1 Rhee’s name in McCune-Reischauer Romanization is Sŏngja Yi. However, the artist signed her artworks as “Seundja Rhee” and I will follow her own spelling. Likewise, I respect all personal names as used in signing of work or in publications.
2 Of her artworks, 145 woodblock prints and photographs are in the collection of Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), 22 woodblock prints and oil paintings are in the collection of Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), and 6 oil paintings and woodblock prints are in the collection of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea (MMCA). Rhee donated 376 oil paintings and woodblock prints to the Seund Ja Rhee Jinju Museum of Art, and private collectors in Korea and France hold the rest of her oil paintings, woodblock prints, and ceramics.
3 For Seundja Rhee’s biography and artworks, see the following works: Yu Hongjun, Seundja Rhee (Seoul: Yŏlhwadang, 1985); Yi Chiŭn et al. Seundja Rhee, yesulkwa sam (Seundja Rhee, life and art) (Seoul: Saenggak ŭi namu, 2007); Gallery Hyundae, The Most Beloved Painter in Korea: Seundja Rhee (Seoul: Maronie books, 2018); Sim Ŭnlog, Yi Sŏngja ŭi Misul (Seundja Rhee’s Art) (Koyang-si: Misul munhwa, 2018); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) ed., The 100th Anniversary of Birth Seundja Rhee: Road to the Antipodes (Kwach’ŏn: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 2018). Hereafter, citations from this book will appear as The 100th Anniversary, followed by page numbers; Park Shinyoung, A Study on the Korean, Japanese, Chinese Artists of “Nouvelle Ecole de Paris” in the 1950s and 60s (Ph.D. dissertation, Seoul National University, 2019).
4 Rhee named her artistic period that began in 1960 the “Mother and Earth” period. Much of the information about her intent comes from extensive interviews. See Kim Chŏlhyo, Archives of Korean Art-Oral History Journal 25 (Seoul: Samsung Foundation of Culture, 2009). Hereafter, citations from this source Archives, followed by the appropriate page numbers. Scholars and museum curators respect the artist’s periodization and follow it as they study or refer to her artworks.
5 Sim, Yi Sŏngja ŭi Misul, 22.
6 To view Rhee’s woodblock prints, see Seund Ja Rhee L’oeuvre Gravé (ÉDITIONS FUS-ART, 1993).
7 Yu, Seundja Rhee, 152.
8 To learn about this competition, see “Symposium: Is the French Avant Garde Overrated?” The Art Digest, October 15, 1953. Here, American artists and art critics including Clement Greenberg argued that American abstract art is superior to that of France. On the other hand, French artists such as Jean Dubuffet argued that American avant-garde art has no distinctive characteristics. Also, see Lawrence Alloway, “Background to Action: A Series of Six Articles on Post-War Painting,” Art News and Review IX (1958).
9 Art Informel, an important European modern art movement, responded to World War II trauma and reacted against traditional naturalistic and figurative and/or rational geometric works. It emphasized spontaneity, irrationality, and gestural expressionism. Tachism, part of the same movement, was practiced in Paris through the 1950s. Like American Abstract Expressionists, French Tachists produced large, sweeping works with drips, blotches, and splashes of colors, but more elegant and graceful in brushstrokes, lyrical in psychic inspiration, and muted and blended in colors. CoBrA was a group of artists, formed in 1948, from Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam. Their style was inspired by children’s art (especially animal images) and is highly expressionistic. Lyrical abstraction (Abstraction Lyrique) is a sub-variant of Art Informel. Compared to the harsh, angst-ridden and dissonant imagery of other Art Informel groups, its characteristic features include sensuous compositions, sumptuous color, and painterly gesture.
10 See Ossip Zadkine, Sculpture by Ossip Zadkine, 1890–1967 (New York: Hirschl and Adler Galleries Inc., 1971); Joseph Manca, Patrick Bade, and Sarah Costello, 1000 Sculptures of Genius (New York: Parkstone International, 2014).
11 Sim, Yi Sŏngja ŭi Misul, 30.
12 Georges Boudaille, “Le Salon National des Beaux-Arts,” Les Lettres Francaises, April 19, 1956.
13 Yi et al., Seundja Rhee, yesulkwa sam, 19.
14 Kim, Archives, 114–16.
15 Yi et al., Seundja Rhee, yesulkwa sam, 145–61.
16 Ibid., 158.
17 Ibid., 158–161.
18 Chu Sŏbil, “Fourteen Works by Rhee Seundja Sold Out in Paris,” JoongAng ilbo (April 26, 1974) page no. unknown. It was cited at MMCA, The 100th Anniversary, 68.
19 See reference on an exhibition held in the Lumiere gallery, March 15, 1967. Also cited at MMCA, The 100th Anniversary, 68.
20 Her statement was quoted by Raymond Nacenta, the Director of Charpentier Gallery, in the essay of the solo exhibition catalogue Rhee Seundja (Seoul National University Faculty Club, September 1–10, 1965). It was re-cited in Kim Yisoon’s essay, “Recording the Essence of Life: Nature as a Metaphor of the Conception and Ultimate Source of Being in the Art of RHEE Seundja,” The 100th Anniversary, 67.
21 Kim, Archives, 281.
22 Ibid., 288.
23 Kim Hansoo, “Meeting of the East and the West, Retrospective Exhibition of Painting and Woodblock Prints by Seundja Rhee,” Choson ilbo (February 14, 1995) page no. unknown. It was recited by Yi et al., Seundja Rhee, yesulkwa sam, 34.
24 Yu Chungsang, “Transformation of the Traditional Spirits of Colors,” in Seundja Rhee: 100 Artists of Korean Contemporary Art 85 (Seoul: Kumsung-sa Publishing Co., 1979), 14.
25 Sim, Yi Sŏngja, 73; Yi et al., Seundja Rhee, yesulkwa sam, 31.
26 Kim, “Recording the Essence of Life,” 69. To view the works of Rhee’s contemporaneous Korean painters in Paris, see Korean Artists in Paris, 1950–1969 (Daejeon: Leeungno Museum, 2018).
27 Ibid., 69–71.
28 Ibid., 71.
29 Kim, Archives, 310.
30 MMCA, The 100th Anniversary, 227.
31 Ibid.
32 Yi et al., Seundja Rhee, yesulkwa sam, 59.
33 Although Rhee lived most of her life in France, she kept her Korean nationality because of her sons and lived in France with a resident card. See Kim, Archives, 147–48.
34 Kim, Archives, 25.
35 Yu, Seund Ja Rhee, 156.
36 Claude Bouret, “Three Woodcut Prints of Rhee Seundja, who makes trees sing,” Seund Ja Rhee: catalogué rasionne de l’oeuvre gravé, 1957–1992 (1993), 5.
37 Madeleine Santschi, Voyage avec Michel Butor (Paris: L’Age D’homme, 1978), 133.
38 Ibid., 191.
39 Sim, Yi Sŏngja ŭi Misul, 165.
40 Ibid., 190.
41 Yi et al., Seundja Rhee, yesulkwa sam, 73.