‘Welcome Home: A Feast of Art’- Special Exhibition of Lee Kun-hee Collection 4 - Lee In-sung

◆ This article was written for foreigners in Daegu and citizens of all countries around the world who are interested in Korean Art. (이 기사는 대구 주재 외국인 및 한국 미술에 관심 있는 세계 모든 국가의 국민들을 위하여 작성한 것입니다.)

Lee In-sung(이인성, 1912-1950, 대구)

“The painting is not realistic.

reproducing the artist's aesthetic sense

This is the world of stars · · · "

“Lee In-sung, X-ray of the world of Joseon art”(Sindonga, 1935)

Lee In-sung was born into a poor family in Daegu, graduated from elementary school, and received watercolor study from Seo Dong-jin. He moved to Japan in 1931. He took drawing and drawing classes at the Daheiyo Art School in Tokyo until 1935.

He was called "The Appearance of a Comet" and "Genius Artist." Because of being a painter who drew attention from the world of art or artist in Daegu at the time. He was not frustrated and showed his strong will for art despite difficult circumstances.

After winning the Joseon Art Exhibition(hereinafter referred to as Seonzeon) in 1929, he was spotlighted as a genius painter by winning and specializing in watercolors and oil paintings with natural talent and fresh expressions. From 1937 to the last Seonzeon, he was the most successful painter of recommendation.

Lee In-seong wanted to express the local colors of Joseon including techniques, materials, colors, and atmosphere. The somewhat rough and bold portrayal and free combination of colors make one feel exotic.

While accepting the new sense in Japan, he paid attention to the controversy over local colors and national art which was popular in the world of art in Joseon at that time.

It is noteworthy that the local color has been increasingly emphasized in the Seonzeon entries since the second half of studying abroad, using watercolors and oil paintings together. It was an artistic attitude of an ideological and subjective artist who tried to indigenize the style of Impressionism, Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and others into Korean sentiments, colors, and materials.

Since 1944, he has served as an art teacher at Ewha Girls' High School in Seoul and also lectured at Ewha Women's University after Korea's liberation. He also held an individual exhibition at the gallery of Donghwa Department Store in Daegu. In 1949, he was appointed to the western department of painting as a recommended painter and appointed as a judge at the 1st Korean Art Exhibition.

He died during the Korean War in 1950.

A Statue of a Woman who put on Yellow Garment 

Lee In-seong's mid-1930s were popular at the Joseon Art Exhibition for <One Autumn Day>(1934) and <In Sangok in Gyeongju(1935)>. At the time, the work depicts Kim Ok-soon (1916-1942), a wife who was studying fashion, whom he met as an art student while studying in Japan. It is a representative Korean modern art work that shows a good sense of color with a stylish new woman dressed in yellow clothes arranged in a diagonal composition and yellow and contrasted green and red with an oil-like watercolor technique.