Page 78 - The Pioneers, November 26, 2016 Hong Kong
P. 78
I like the work I'll be painting from now on. Simple composition, the subtle color of blue - only I can
create my world.
- Kim Whan-ki 1
Kim Whan-Ki is one of the most highly recognised painting. (Fig. 1 & 2) However, he always felt an urgency
pioneers of abstract painting in Korean modern art history. to liberate his Korean spirit from the strict Japanese
His peripatetic life-style, traveling from Korea, to Japan, to academicism and the pronounced European influence
France and finally to America embodies his endless quest prevalent in the art world he encountered at that time.
to develop and express a unique abstract painting style.
Born in 1913 on a small island in Chungnam Province, Kim With his return to Korea in 1953, specifically during a
began his elementary education in Seoul, later transferring sojourn in his hometown, Kim seriously began to delve
to Nishigishiro Middle School in Tokyo. When he returned into the issue of Korean aesthetics. Kim expanded his
to the island as a young man in 1932, his father expressed artistic experiments with varied Korean motifs—in
his strong objection to Kim’s desire to study art in college. particular with Joseon Dynasty white porcelains, Goryeo
The budding artist was not deterred and covertly secured Dynasty celadon and traditional literati paintings. His
passage to Japan so he could start attending classes in interest was in capturing the poetic emotion and spirit
the Department of Fine Arts at Nihon University. While imbued in both the naturalism and actual nature of
in Japan, Kim began to study European Modernism, Korea. To Kim, nature and tradition were one and the
reflecting upon the works of European geometric same. His way of depicting nature was to extract from
abstraction painters from Cubism to Neo Plasticism. He motifs, such as clouds and cranes inlaid in Korean
began to incorporate elements he admired from the work ceramic or plum blossoms in literary painting, in order
of artists such as Klee, Matisse, and Braque into his own to remold them as simplified forms in his own art.
Kim Whan-Ki, Montagne Bleue (Blue Mountain), 1956 Lot 2509 Kim Whan-Kim, Fleur de Lotus (Lotus Flower), 1956
Christie's Hong Kong, 30 May 2015, Lot 7,
sold for HKD 13,840,000 Christie's Hong Kong, 26 November 2016, Lot 43
金煥基《藍山》 1956年作 佳士得香港 2015年5月30日 編號7
成交價：13,840,000 港元 《 》1956 2016 11 26 43
© Whanki Foundation·Whanki Museum
© Whanki Foundation·Whanki Museum
68 THE PIONEERS 先 鋒 薈 萃
