A closer look at the life and inspirations of modern art master Kim Whanki

Arts & Design

Published: 23 May. 2023, 15:43 Updated: 23 May. 2023, 17:03

A closer look at the life and inspirations of modern art master Kim Whanki

The evolution of the blue full moon in Kim Whanki's paintings now on view at Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, Gyeonggi. ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [MOON SO-YOUNG]

The Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, Gyeonggi, operated by the Samsung Cultural Foundation, opened “A Dot A Sky Kim Whanki” as its first exhibition last week after a complete renovation. It is a large-scale retrospective showcasing a total of about 120 works including 88 oil paintings, from the artist's earliest works to the dot paintings created when he reached his artistic peak in the 1970s. Tae Hyun-sun, head of the Leeum Museum of Art’s Collections Research Department, who curated the exhibition, explained that Kim's keywords are "nature, tradition, and art," and that his artistic world is a journey toward abstraction. Here are six facts about Kim that will help you better understand his work.

1. The blue full moon

″The Moon and Tree″(1948) by Kim Whanki ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [HOAM MUSEUM OF ART]

"Cloud and the Moon"(1963) by Kim Whanki ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [MMCA]

The exhibition consists of two parts. While Part 2 features works of Kim’s New York period (1963-74), Part 1 showcases his works before the period. The first painting of Part 1, “The Moon and Tree”(1948), and its last painting “Cloud and the Moon”(1963) have something in common. They feature blue full moons. Many other paintings of Kim's on view feature full moons and most of them are blue with just a few exceptions. Why did Kim paint the moon blue? We can get a hint from a line in Kim’s poem "Joseon White Porcelain" (1946), which he wrote while gazing at a white porcelain moon jar from the Joseon period (1392-1910) in his yard.

"The round sky and the round jar / And the blue sky and the white jar / Are an unmistakable pair."

In this poem, Kim describes the sky, not the moon, as round and blue, and calls it "a pair" with the moon jar. In many of his paintings, such as “Moonlight Symphony”(1954), a round blue moon is partly overlapped with a round moon jar. Therefore, we can speculate that the blue full moon in Kim's paintings is not only the moon, but also a symbol and abstraction of the "round sky" and "blue sky," given the fact that the traditional East Asian view of the universe is "cheon-won-ji-bang," or "the sky is round and the earth is square.”

Kim Whanki's paintings in the 1950s where the moon jar and the moon appear together ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [MOON SO-YOUNG]

The moon in Kim’s early works does not have aureole, but from the mid-1950s onwards, the blue full moon is often surrounded by a luminous rim reminiscent of a halo or aureole. In Part 2, an early New York-period work “Morning Stars”(1964) shows not only the moon but also stars surrounded with luminous rims. The moon and the stars seem to evolve into blue dots in his dot paintings in the 1970s. The softly blurred rims of the dots give the impression of an afterglow of light or an echo of sound. In other words, Kim's dots in the paintings in the 1970s didn't just appear out of nowhere but they originate from the blue full moon surrounded with a luminous rim in his earlier paintings.

2. Old porcelain as source of inspiration

Kim Whanki's "Song of Eternity" series (1957) ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [MOON SO-YOUNG]

"Song of Eternity"(1957) by Kim Whanki ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [HOAM MUSEUM OF ART]

Kim’s love of Joseon white porcelain, especially moon jars, is well known. It is widely believed that Kim was the one who started calling the big round-shaped white porcelain jars from the 17-18th centuries the beautiful and poetic name of "moon jars." Before, they were simply called white porcelain jars. In this exhibition, a moon jar that belonged to Kim is featured.

"The uniqueness of this moon jar is that it is bluish white, while usual moon jars are pure white or creamy white. It must be the one that appears in Kim’s essay ‘Bluish White Jar’(1955)," said Tae. In the essay, he describes the jar as having "a rounded body and a heel that is narrower than the mouth, so it does not seem to be resting, but floating in the air." He wrote in a letter the moon jar’s shape is “avant-garde” and he was inspired by it.

Kim was also inspired by patterns on traditional ceramics. Art historian Yoon Nan-ji points out that Kim's depictions of nature are "derived from patterns engraved on ceramics such as cranes flying amid clouds inlaid in Goryeo-period celadon vases and from paintings on folding screens." Not only was Kim influenced by Western abstraction, but he also inherited the highly abstracted, simplified representation of nature from Korean literary art and ceramic patterns, Yoon said. This was "further developed during Kim's Paris period [1956-59]" according to art historian O Kwang-su. A prime example of this is the "Song of Eternity" series (1957) shown in the exhibition.

This picture provided by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) shows, from left, Kim Whanki, his wife Kim Hyang-an, his son-in-law and dansaekhwa master Yun Hyong-keun and Kim's daughter Kim Young-suk in 1963. [MMCA]

3. His wife Kim Hyang-an

A year before Kim left for Paris, his wife, the essayist Kim Hyang-an (1916-2004), had already arrived in the French capital to study French and find an atelier for Whanki to use. She had tremendous drive. Kim Hyang-an is not her original name. She was born Byeon Dong-rim. As a rare well-educated woman in that era, she understood, fell in love with and married the famous “doomed genius poet” Lee Sang (1910-1937). Seven years after Lee died, she met and fell in love with Kim Whanki, then a divorced man and already father of three daughters. When they finally got married in 1944, she changed her name to Kim Hyang-an. Then, she became the first critic, advisor, and manager of his work. After Whanki’s death, she established the Whanki Foundation and in 1992, founded Whanki Museum, Korea’s first private museum dedicated to a single artist.

Kim Whanki's 1956 painting ″Jars,″ left, and a piece of wooden furniture that seems to be a model for the wooden shelves in the painting. They are on view at Kim's retrospective at the Hoam Museum of Art. ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [HOAM MUSEUM OF ART, MOON SO-YOUNG]

4. His son-in-law Yun Hyong-keun

Many interesting materials are unveiled to the public for the first time in this exhibition. Among them is a piece of wooden furniture that is believed to be an actual model of a wooden shelf lined with Joseon white porcelain jars in Kim Whanki’s 1956 painting “Jars.” When Kim left for New York, he left this work to his eldest daughter Kim Young-sook and her husband Yun Hyong-keun (1928-2007), now regarded as a master of dansaekhwa, or Korean monochrome painting.

Yun was not only Kim's son-in-law, but also his student. Yun's early works are clearly influenced by Kim. He admired Kim, calling him "father". Even their handwriting is similar, as seen in the postcards they exchanged. However, from around 1973, Yun’s art began to diverge from Kim's as he worked exclusively in a monochromatic color, which is a mixture of umber (dark brown) and blue pigments.

Kim Whanki's "Morning Stars"(1963), right, and "Morning #3"(1964-5), left. ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [MOON SO-YOUNG]

5. Initially criticized in New York?

Kim participated in the 1963 São Paulo Biennial in Brazil and saw energetic American abstract expressionist paintings there. He realized where the new center of modern art was and decided to move to New York.

Kim's first solo exhibition after moving to New York in 1964 was harshly criticized by The New York Times. Its review reads, “Stodgy, near abstract landscapes tend to bog down in kneaded layers of glutinous paint. No trace of Asian influences in work by this Korean artist...” As a Westerner, the journalist seems to have been ignorant of the traditions and meanings of clouds, the moon, and mountains in East Asian culture. Instead of being disheartened or angered by this, Kim searched for a way to make his work universally appealing to viewers from other cultures without background knowledge of Asian culture. While switching to full abstraction, he visualized the East Asian tradition by changing the thick texture that The New York Times criticized into a clear, thin texture like an ink painting. This transformation can be seen in Part 2 of the exhibition. The result of this experimentation is the dot paintings in the 1970s.

Such paintings are now admired in circles of both art historians and collectors. Nine of the 10 most-expensive Korean modern artworks sold at auction were Kim's New York-period dot paintings.

"Heaven and Earth 24-Ⅸ-73 #320"(1973) by Kim Whanki ⓒWhanki Foundation·Whanki Museum [MOON SO-YOUNG]

6. The Unity of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind

In Kim’s New York-period dot paintings, countless dots appear on much larger canvases. The dots with layered borders that smoothly permeate the cotton canvas give the feeling of stars with halo or long-lasting resonance. Kim wrote that he thinks of "stars," Korean "cuckoo songs," and "friends" when he makes his dots. Thus, his dots represent celestial stars with halos, earthly sounds with resonance, and human beings with auras. This is a reflection of the East Asian idea of the unity of heaven, earth and humankind.

This is clearly visible in his 1970 painting “Where, in What Form, Shall We Meet Again.” The title of the painting is from the poem “In the Evening" by Kim Gwang-seop. The poem reads as follows. "Out of that many stars, / one looks down on me, / out of this many people, / I look at that one star (...), / you one and I one / so close like this / where, in what form, / shall we meet again."

BY MOON SO-YOUNG [moon.soyoung@joongang.co.kr]