Tracing the Parisian exile of Korean modernists painters Lee Ungno and Han Mook, this catalogue highlights the work and life of two artists who built an innovative work at the crossroads of Western and Eastern traditions.
Published following the eponymous exhibition at Le Consortium, Dijon, from October 30, 2015, to January 24, 2016.
Born in Seoul, Han Mook (1914-2016) has lived and worked in Paris since 1961. Deeply marked by the 1969 Apollo mission, the cosmic and stellar space became a prominent theme in his work. He borrowed his artistic vocabulary from international abstraction, while combining it with bright colors and curved, discontinuous patterns.
Lee Ungno (1904-1989) is a Korean painter. From 1967 to 1969 he was imprisoned in Korea under the false charge of espionage in favor of North Korea. He came to Paris for the first time in 1957. He would later settled permanently in the French capital, where he died in 1989. Ungno Lee is the prototype of the “transmodernist” artist who maintained a continual dialogue between his oriental tradition and a modernist approach of art.
