Park Rehyun
1920–1976 · Korean painter, pioneer of modern Korean art
Park Naehyeon (Park Rehyun, 1920-1976) was a Korean painter born in Jinnampo, in present-day North Korea, when the country was under Japanese rule. She is regarded as a pioneer of modern Korean art during the late colonial period and the decades that followed.
After finishing secondary school at Keijō in 1937, she entered the Tokyo Women's School of Fine Arts in 1941. Her career began in 1943, when she was accepted to the Chōsen Art Exhibition and won the top prize awarded by the President, which brought her wider attention. She later served as a juror at national exhibitions into the late 1960s.
Her painting sought to combine oriental materials with Western approaches. In the 1950s she drew on cubism and the analytical division of the canvas into colour planes, and in the 1960s she turned to abstraction. In the 1970s she worked with tapestry and printmaking, skills she studied in New York.
She was a member of the Baekyanghoe group, exhibiting with it in Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Osaka, and represented South Korea at the São Paulo Biennale. Married to the painter Kim Ki-chang, she also influenced his work. She died in Seoul in 1976.