Nam Center for Korean Studies Colloquium Series: Park Su-Geun, the Bando Gallery, and Selling Korean Contemporary Art at Home and Abroad, 1950s-1970s

Park Su-geun, People on the Street, 1962, Oil on canvas, 36.5 x 27.3 cm, Gift of the Joseph T. A. and Elise Choy Lee Family, 2013/2.525

This lecture celebrates UMMA's recent acquisition of Park's work People on the Street, a gift from the family of the late Joseph T. A. Lee, who taught in the U-M College of Architecture and Urban Planning for over three decades.

Park Su-geun, one of South Korea’s most beloved painters of the 20th century, is known as much for the development of his textured, rock-like painted surfaces as he is for his subject matter: rural Korean men, women, and children. This lecture by Christine Hahn, Associate Professor of Art History at Kalamazoo College, traces Park's career between 1940 and his death in 1965, focusing on several interrelated factors that influenced Park's work including his relationship with Western audiences and patrons through the newly formed Bando Gallery in Seoul; his fascination with the French Barbizon painter, Jean-Francois Millet; and his enduring interest in early Korean history and archaeology.

A reception to celebrate UMMA's acquisition of "People on the Street," along with an opportunity to see the work, will follow the lecture.

Christine Y. Hahn is Associate Professor of Art History at Kalamazoo College.  Her interest in the painter Park Su-geun evolved out of her doctoral work at the University of Chicago, which examined the development of modern Korean racial, ethnic, and national identity through the vehicle of painters, exhibitions, and the art museum during the mid-20th century.  This work has been supported by the Fulbright and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been published in the Journal of Visual Resources as well as in a forthcoming issue of positions: asia critique. 

Cosponsored by UMMA.

This program is also made possible in part by a Title VI grant from the US Department of Education.