Yi K'wae-dae (1913-1965) 
_______ 
|next ->|

"Rocks in the ocean", 31.3 x 40 cm, oil on cardboard, 1961




Yi K'wae-dae (1913-1965)

Yi K'wae-dae was born and raised in Taegu. As a student at the Imperial Art Academy in Tokyo (1933-1937), he became an active and successful painter whose works were displayed at several art exhibitions in Japan. While in Japan, he joined Yi Chung-sŏp (who later fled the North for the South), Ch'oe Chae-dŏk and Mun Hak-su (who later both fled to the North) in their modernist efforts to fight academism and to establish a Korean New Artists Club. Yi returned to Korea and held his first solo exhibition in October 1943. After 1945, he got involved in leftist political activities and became an enthusiastic member of the Korean Fine Arts League and the Korean Artists Union, but soon became disappointed with the Workers Party's art policy of enforcing Socialist Realism and discouraging experimentation (see Yi's article in Sinch'ŏnji 2/1947). Consequently, he left these art organizations, only to return to them after the outbreak of the Korean War, at which point he worked as a war painter for the Northern army. There is no further information available about Yi's career in the North, but it is believed that he taught art at the P'yŏngyang Art School during the 1950s. His articles, such as an exhibition review of his old friend Mun Hak-su, appeared in North Korean publications at least until the late 1950s. 


_______ 
|next ->|