Lee Quede

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	이쾌대
Hancha	李 快 大
Revised Romanization	I Kwae-dae
McCune- Reischauer	I K'waetae
See also : Korean name

Lee Quede ( Korean 이쾌대 ; * 1913 in the district of Chilgok-gun or the city of Daegu in the province of Gyeongsangbuk-do in Korea ; † 1965 or 1987 in North Korea ), also known as Yi Kwae-dae in another transliteration , was a Korean painter .

Life

Lee Quede was born as the son of a landowner in the district of Chilgok-gun ( 칠곡군 ) or the city ( Daegu 대구 ) of today's province of Gyeongsangbuk-do ( 경상북도 ) in the south of the then unified Korea. After his primary schooling, he moved in 1927 to the private Whimoon High School in Seoul , where he under the painter and teacher Chang Bal ( 창발 studied and) (1901-2001) later to the School Teikoku Art in Tokyo changed, now called Musashino Art University known is.

At the age of 20, Lee married his wife Yu Gap-bong ( 유갑봉 ) (1914–1980), with whom he spent a lot of time in Japan while studying. In 1938 he successfully completed his art studies. When Korea was liberated from the Japanese occupation, in 1945 he initially worked at the Joseon Art Building Headquarters to develop Korean art in the southern half of the country. But disturbed by ideological currents, he resigned from the association and in 1946 only briefly joined the North Korean association Joseon Art Alliance. After his older brother Lee Myeong-geon ( 이명 건 ) defected to North Korea in 1948 and held a high position in the North Korean Communist Party, Lee ran into trouble, was interrogated by the South Korean police and forced himself to go public by the anti-communist organization National Guidance Federation to position anti-communist.

When the Korean War began and Seoul was occupied by North Korean troops, he was forced to rejoin the North Korean Arts Association. When the Allies retook Seoul in 1950, South Korean soldiers captured him and deported him to the island of Geojedo ( 거제도 ) in the prisoner-of-war camp there. Allegedly threatened by rights from the art scene, after a prisoner of war exchange organized in 1953, he managed to move to North Korea a year later without his wife and children. There he is said to have married again and had children. However, he no longer appeared in the art scene in North Korea and died in 1965, another source states in 1987, at an unknown location.

Working as an artist

In 1930 Lee presented three of his works in the context of a private Japanese art competition and was able to win first prize with his work “Fate”. In 1932, five years after starting his studies at Whimoon High School in Seoul, he presented some of his paintings to a wide audience at the Joseon Art Exhibition . Between 1941 and 1944 Lee founded the Joseon New Artist Association together with the five artists, Cheo Jae-deok , Jin Hwan , Kim Jong-chan , Lee Jung-seob and Moon Hak-su .

Lee was, ideologized by his older brother, a political painter who critically examined the situation of the occupation of Korea by the Japanese and, after 1945, advocated Koranic art with a strong identity of its own. He saw himself as a nationalist and was in favor of removing all Japanese influences from Korean art and was against the division of the country into north and south. During a trip to North Korea he was impressed by large Russian paintings in the style of socialist realism, which prompted him to write an article in the magazine Sin Cheonji ( 신천지 ). During the occupation of Seoul by North Korea, he painted Kim Il-sung ( 김일성 ) and Josef Stalin , which later brought him captivity in South Korea. In the camp he then painted family portraits with the help of an American commandant.

After Lee moved to North Korea after his liberation, he is said to have exhibited his pictures at an art exhibition in Moscow in 1957, but, despite further work in North Korea, no longer counted among the recognized artists.

Most of his works that are known today were created by him between 1930 and 1950.

Exhibition on the 70th anniversary of Korean independence

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Korea's independence, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Deoksugung in Seoul organized an exhibition with works by Lee Quede. Under the title "Lee Quede - An Epic of Liberation " a total of 412 of his works were exhibited from July 22, 2015 to November 1, 2016, including 41 oil paintings.

literature

• Kim Yoo-kyung: Lee Quede . Legend from turbulent times. In: Koreana . Volume 10, No. 4. The Korea Foundation , 2015, ISSN  1975-0617 , p. 34–39 (German-language edition).
• Philip West, Suh Ji-moon : Remembering the Forgotten War . The Korean War Through Literature and Art . Routledge , New York 2015, ISBN 0-7656-0696-8 , Chapter 4 - The Korean War and the Visual Arts .
  • Roe Jae-ryung : The Korean War and the Visual Arts . In: Remembering the Forgotten War . Routledge , New York 2015, pp. 55-76 .

Web links

• Lee Quede - An Epic of Liberation . National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 2015,accessed November 20, 2017. 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Two different sources give different places of birth, but they are close to each other:
   • Kim: Lee Quede . In: Koreana . 2015, p. 36 .
   • Roe : The Korean War and the Visual Arts . In: Remembering the Forgotten War . 2015, p. 69 .
2. ↑ Two different sources provide different information on the year of death:
   • Kim: Lee Quede . In: Koreana . 2015, p. 36 .
   • Roe : The Korean War and the Visual Arts . In: Remembering the Forgotten War . 2015, p. 71 .
3. ^ Roe : The Korean War and the Visual Arts . In: Remembering the Forgotten War . 2015, p.  69 .
4. ↑ ^{a b} Depicting Love: 1929-1937 . National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art , 2015, accessed November 20, 2017 .  
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Kim: Lee Quede . In: Koreana . 2015, p. 36 .
6. ^ ^{A b c} Roe : The Korean War and the Visual Arts . In: Remembering the Forgotten War . 2015, p.  70 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} Kim: Lee Quede . In: Koreana . 2015, p. 38 .
8. ^ ^{A b} Roe : The Korean War and the Visual Arts . In: Remembering the Forgotten War . 2015, p.  71 .
9. ↑ ^{a b} Kim: Lee Quede . In: Koreana . 2015, p. 39 .
10. ↑ Searching for Tradition: 1938-1944 . National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art , 2015, accessed November 20, 2017 .  
11. ↑ ^{a b} Lee Quede - An Epic of Liberation . National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art , 2015, accessed November 20, 2017 .  

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Lee is the family name here, Quede is the first name.