[KS] Korean Art market during the colonial period

[Frank Hoffmann]

Just to add to what Keith Pratt just said:

From what I gather so far very few Koreans bought 
contemporary art at the time, not for collection 
purposes in any case (rather for decoration of 
offices, business buildings, etc.). The reasons 
are obvious. What I found so far, but with still 
too little evidence, is that Korean painters 
produced, other than for the annual Chosôn Art 
Exhibition, works directly for Japanese living in 
Korea -- including a quite sizable amount of 
erotic art works (stylistic imitations of Qing 
Chinese works), usually in the form of 
traditional style albums. Besides, certainly 
works for travellers from Japan, usually showing 
Korean men and women in traditional dress, and 
usually strongly influenced in style by Japanese 
Nihonga. I don't know of any oil paintings being 
bought or ordered by Japanese -- which again 
makes a lot of sense. But I too can imagine that 
works that already hung in the Chosôn Art 
Exhibition, and had therefore gathered some 
value, were then being bought by Japanese (and/or 
Korean collectors) such as Kim Sông-su. It should 
also be noted that many Japanese artists lived 
and worked in Korea. The residency requirement to 
participate in the Chosôn Art Exhibition was half 
a year, and many less successful Japanese artists 
tried to find there luck in Chósen, but without 
much success. Yet, they competed with local 
Korean artists in this very limited market, also 
produced lots of what is nowadays being called 
"local colors" painting in South Korea.

Frank

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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws