|
Chun Kyung-ja and Her Teacher
- Story by Professor Yun Kwang-woon of PKNU
△ Chun Kyung-ja (left) is talking to Kim Im-nyeon at her teacher’s first solo exhibition held at Busan Cultural Center. The renowned artist looks like a young school girl in front of her high school teacher. The photo of Chun with her mentor is revealed for the first time. (Photo provided by Choi Gye-hyeon, Head of Hyosan Information System Inc.)
Why Chun Kyung-ja, master painter of the time, decided to donate her works to Pukyong National University of Busan?
Quite a few people have thought of this question after the press conference of Lee Hye-seon, first daughter of Chun who followed the wish of the late artist, in December last year.
△ Honorary Professor Yun Kwang-woon |
The news column of Yun Kwang-woon, honorary professor of Pukyong National Univeristy, which was published on page 29 of Kookje Daily News on 8 January, is the answer.
He was the one who played a key part in the process of donation. His mother Kim Im-nyeon, as it’s known, was a teacher as well as a mentor of Chun Kyung-ja.
The writing and interview of Professor Yun provide a closer look at the ties between Kim Im-nyeon and Chun Kyung-ja.
Kim Im-nyeon, art teacher of Gwangju National Girl’s High School which is present-day Chonnam Girl’s High School, found the talent in her student, Chun Kyung-ja, and suggested her to study in Japan. It was Chun’s first step as a painter. In other words, Kim was the one who led Chun on a path to becoming an artist.
For that reason, the student, who was only eleven years younger, forged an unusually close bond with her teacher and treated her with special respect. Chun even gifted Kim her painting, “Convent of Hakodate.” Chun studied at Tokyo Women’s Art School, now Joshibi University of Art and Design, and it was also alma mater of Kim Im-nyeon. The schoolgirls often went to the convent for a picnic. Chun wanted to remember the place where she shared the same memories with her mentor as well as senior, and did so in her work.
The painter followed her senior and became an art teacher of Chonnam Girl’s High School, her alma mater, in 1946.
During her life, Chun never forgot to send letters and invitations or postcards of her exhibition to Jinyoung of Kimhae and Busan, places where her teacher stayed.
The two had the most intimate relations during the years of 1994-1995. In 1994, Kim Im-nyeon, at her age of 80, surprised everyone by holding her first solo exhibition at Busan Cultural Center. Chun visited Busan to attend Kim’s exhibition after 42 years since her last visit in 1952 to hold her own exhibition including “Ecology,” the work she was generally known by. She cut the ribbon on the first day and heartily congratulated the exhibition of her mentor.
“Weeping Willow,” one of the works in the exhibition of Kim Im-nyeon, was donated by Professor Yun and is now displayed in the Conference Room at the third floor of the administration building of College of Engineering of PKNU.
△ Chun Kyung-ja’s ‘Convent of Hakodate,’ Presented to Kim Im-nyeon and revealed by Yun Kwang-woon, her son, for the first time.
The next year, they met at the Chun’s last exhibition at Ho-Am Art Museum for the last time ever.
In 1991, when one of Chun Kyung-ja’s works became embroiled in a forgery scandal, she left for the U.S. after she announced the end of her career as a painter. Kim Im-nyeon, her teacher, passed away at the age of 89 in November of 2003, and the student who was receiving medical treatment in the U.S. followed her mentor and died last August at her age of 91.
Chun Kyung-ja (1924-2015), born in Goheung, Jeollanam-do, was a painter who played an important role in the field of art. After her “Grandfather” was selected for the 22nd Joseon Art Exhibition in 1942, she created esthetic and fantastic works about sorrow and illusion of women and dream and loneliness of human beings, including “Ecology,” “Gil-rye” and “The 49th Page of My Sad Legend.”
.JPG)
△ Kim Im-nyeon’s ‘Weeping Willow,’ Administration Building, College of Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan
She was the member of the National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea (NAA) as well as a professor of Hongik University, and won many awards including Literary Awards of May, Seoul City Cultural Awards, Cultural Award of March’s First, NAA Awards, and Korean government’s Silver Cultural Medal.
Yun Kwang-woon, in his writing in Kookje Daily News, said, “Chun Kyung-ja was born in Goheung, Jeollanam-do, and held her first exhibition in Busan, and lived in New York before she died. The three cities that were meaningful and important in her life have something in common, the sea,” and he added, “Her Memorial Art Museum will open in Busan, the city of the sea. I hope her efforts to express sorrow and beauty of women in her works to remain with us and her beloved sea.”
Chun Kyung-ja Memorial Art Museum, which will be constructed on the campus of PKNU, is expected to become a cultural place of the region that can provide a place to develop the talent of the future and the present artists and illustrate significant guideposts in the development of Korean art. <Pukyong Today>
|
