As part of the "Art + Design from a European private collection" sale on Wednesday, September 23, 2020, PIASA presents emblematic artists of the second half of the 20th century, including the Korean painter Yun Hyong Keun.
Born in 1928 in Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province, Yun Hyong Keun, after initial training in business, enrolled in 1946 in an art school to study drawing.
The following year he attended the College of Fine Arts at the new National University in Seoul. In the context of the Korean War, his proximity to certain student movements led him to Seodaemun prison for six months. He barely escaped from the firing squad.
Once released, the artist entered Hongik University from which he graduated in 1957. While teaching in high schools, Yun Hyong Keun began to see his work exhibited, particularly in Seoul. In 1969, he presented his work at the 10th São Paulo Art Biennial.
At that time, his painting was characterized by an approach combining with great harmony lyricism and abstraction. It was only in the mid-1970s that Yun Hyong Keun fully devoted himself to painting. He then shaped a style of his own. For him, his paintings constitute a passage, a door to heaven and earth. His use of the chromatic range is minimal since he paints mainly with blue (color of the sky) and black (color of the earth).
The work offered for sale on Wednesday, September 23rd was created in 2002. Estimated at 80,000 and 120,000 euros, it consists of oil paint on a linen support.
He maintain conflictual relations with the regime. In 1972, while the painter was teaching at Sookmyung high school, he found himself in prison for a month for circumventing anti-communist laws. Placed on a blacklist until 1980, he remained under close police surveillance.
Over the years, Yun's painting became simpler and stricter in terms of colors and shapes. But these seemingly simple works have a hidden depth. From the beginning of the 1990s, his works were exhibited in Europe, notably at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool in 1992 and at the Venice Biennale in 1995 where he represented the Korean pavilion.
