Ryu Kyung-chai (1920-1995) debuted as a painter after being selected for the Joseon Art Exhibition in 1940, and graduated from the Ryokuin School of Social Paintings, Japan, in 1941. After he received the special Presidential prize for his “Neighborhood of a Bare Mountain”at the 1st National Art Exhibition of the Republic of Korea in 1949, he became one of the painters who stayed with the National Art Exhibition by serving as a judge, a committee member, and as an invited or recommended artist for the exhibition until it was abolished in 1981. He is the founder of Creative Arts Association established in 1957, and served on the faculty of Ewha Womans University and Seoul National University.
In his early days, under Japanese colonial rule, Ryu Kyung-chai delved into lyrical, realistic paintings; yet in the post-liberation era, his oeuvre gradually morphed into abstract art. The “Neighborhood of a Bare Mountain,” the piece that won him the grand prize at the 1st National Art Exhibition in 1949, is essentially a landscape painting, yet the nature depicted in the landscape is treated as a formative component of the composition, which defines the piece as a semi-abstract painting. Later in the early 1960s, Ryu attempted to create Informel works, or abstract paintings filled with rough brush strokes and matiere. For example, in “Weathering” (1962), the entire canvas evokes an old wall. The Informel influence, however, did not last long, and he instead created abstract paintings characterized by Ryu Kyung-chai’s unique lyrical sense toward the end of the 1960s. He attempted to create work that was much closer to geometric abstraction in his later days. Ryu’s oeuvre continuously evolved with the passing of time, yet it is fair to say that regardless of realism, semi-abstraction, or abstraction, the underlying philosophy persistent in his works is lyrical naturalism. The very foundation that forms Ryu’s paintings is nature, and the image of nature is presented in abstract painting as a landscape, with a sophisticated and cozy sense of color particular to Ryu, thereby presenting a lyrical naturalism.
