Lehmann Maupin Seoul is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Chang Ucchin, Lee Ungno, and Suh Se Ok, three pivotal masters in modern Korean art who redefined the relationship between the individual and the collective through distinct yet intersecting visual languages. The exhibition title reflects a shared concern in their practices: while each artist approaches the human figure as a singular presence, their works extend beyond the individual to consider humanity as a whole. Working across ink and oil, figuration and abstraction, they treated the brush as a structural instrument, organizing line, mass, and interval into rhythmic compositions that articulate how figures gather, disperse, and inhabit shared space—probing the tension between solitary presence and collective life.
Emerging from different artistic formations and historical circumstances, each artist engaged tradition in distinct ways. Lee and Suh approach the legacy of East Asian ink painting and calligraphy as a foundational visual framework to be expanded, abstracted, and reoriented toward modern concerns. Meanwhile, Chang—working primarily in oil and intermittently in ink—did not explicitly align himself with a continuous literati lineage. Instead, his work distills visual form to an elemental clarity that parallels ink aesthetics without claiming its inheritance. In each case, tradition becomes neither static nor purely referential, but a flexible structure through which the conditions of modern life and shared existence are examined.
Lee Ungno’s practice traverses the embodiment of the sign and the signification of the body. As suggested by his early pen name “Juksa” (literally meaning ‘calligrapher for bamboo’), bamboo marks the point of departure for his artistic universe, gradually transforming into calligraphic script and, ultimately, into human figures. In his paintings, characters stand or dance like figures, capturing visual similarity between bodily movement and written language. In his 1970s Abstract Letter works, figuration fuses with gestural brushwork within a calligraphic structure. From 1979 onward, Lee concentrated on his celebrated Crowd series, in which figures traverse the picture plane to generate a collective rhythm. Repeated strokes and modulations of ink blur the boundaries between individuals while preserving the vitality of each gesture. Lee sought to expand the resonance of these works beyond political specificity and toward a universal language of shared breath and movement. A 1987 work from the Crowd series, produced during the final decade of his life, unfolds along a dynamic diagonal composition: interwoven figures expand across the canvas with powerful momentum. Repetitive brushstrokes soften individual contours yet animate each body, while tonal gradations of black ink weave the entire surface into a single, rhythmic expanse.
Chang Ucchin’s oil paintings present a lucid and simplified world in which recurring motifs such as sun and moon, figures, dogs, calves, trees, and houses all coexist on an egalitarian pictorial plane. His career is often divided according to the locations in which he lived and worked: Myeongnyun-dong, Deokso, Suanbo, and Yongin (Singal), each marking subtle shifts in style. In Tree (1984)—which was created during his Suanbo period, distinguished by heightened formal radicality—a solitary tree anchors the center of the canvas like a rotating earth, establishing pictorial order while evoking both cosmic and quotidian cycles. Within restrained forms, luminous color fields, and unadorned imagery, Tree is a distilled meditation on the essence of life.
Around 1977, Chang also devoted himself to ink paintings that articulated a different mode of modernity through the tension and transparency of single, decisive brushstrokes. While retaining traditional materials, these works enacted a conceptual shift. Referring to them modestly as “toying around with the brush” or even “brush fun,” Chang distanced himself from institutional categories. As shown in Two Men under the Tree (1982), his simplified forms and flattened compositions do not reiterate traditional landscapes or bird-and-flower painting; rather, through symbolic reduction, they probe the structural conditions of existence.
Sanjeong Suh Se Ok’s works inhabit the spirit of literati painting while expanding the horizon of ink abstraction. The formation of the Mukrimhoe (Ink Forest Society) in 1960 marked a crucial turning point for the artist, who joined as the group sought to root experimental ink painting in the legacy of literati tradition. Suh subsequently pursued the essential qualities of humanity and nature through restrained brushwork, repetition, and rhythmic composition. In his seminal People series, minimal lines coalesce into clusters of figures that connect and disperse. Swift strokes and the diffusion of ink into hanji paper reveal both performative gesture and material presence, reducing the relationship between individual and collective to an abstract structure. Figures become symbolic entities; within a system of repetition and variation, the dynamics of community and individuality emerge in distilled form.
Working contemporaneously, Lee linked ink painting to international discourses of abstraction, Suh expanded the expressive possibilities of the literati tradition, and Chang suspended rigid genre distinctions in favor of essential forms. Across these distinct trajectories, modern Korean painting reimagines the human figure not as motif but as structural principle—whether gathered in rhythmic crowds, distilled into clusters, or dispersed across pictorial fields where a singular presence quietly expands into its own cosmos.
About the Artists
Lee Ungno (b.1904, Hongseong, South Korea; d.1989, Paris, France) is a master of modern art who began his practice in the tradition of Korean literati painting and advanced to the forefront of Western abstraction. Living through a turbulent era marked by Japanese colonial rule, liberation, war, national division, and democratization, Lee continuously renewed his artistic language. Moving between East and West, he succeeded in articulating both Korean tradition and modernity within a single, evolving practice. Born in 1904 in Hongseong, South Chungcheong Province, Lee began studying the Four Noble Plants (plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo) with calligrapher and painter Taehoe Song in his late teens, laying the foundations of painting. In 1922, he moved to Seoul to study calligraphy and ink painting under Haegang Kim Gyujin, embarking on formal artistic training. He later traveled to Japan in 1936, where he developed a distinctive style that fused traditional literati painting with the representational techniques of Western art. After the liberation of Korea, Lee returned to Seoul and, seeking to distance himself from Japanese artistic influence, founded the Danggu Art Institute to promote a distinctly Korean painting tradition. From 1948 to 1950, he served as a professor in the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University, dedicating himself to the education of younger artists. Following his move to Paris in 1958, Lee entered the realm of abstraction in earnest and developed his signature collage techniques. His recognition of Chinese characters as a source of Eastern abstraction offered an original response to the challenge of modernizing tradition. Lee’s imprisonment for two and a half years in Seodaemun Prison following his involvement in the East Berlin Incident of 1967 paradoxically became a turning point in his artistic trajectory. After returning to France in 1969, he fully developed his 문자 추상 (Abstract Letter) works. In the 1980s, he focused intensively on the Gunsang (Crowd) series, firmly establishing his international reputation. Lee Ungno passed away in Paris in 1989. Serving as a vital bridge between Korea and France, his oeuvre compellingly demonstrates how traditional media and visual languages can be rearticulated within the context of modern art.
Lee’s work was revisited in a large-scale retrospective, Ungno Lee Revisited: The 100th Anniversary of Birth, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2004). Since its opening in 2007, the Lee Ungno Museum has continued to present the artist’s work. Lee received the Honorary Award at the Bienal de Sāo Paulo (1962) and the Grand Prize from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (1978). His works are held in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; MMCA; and Lee Ungno Museum in Daejeon, South Korea.
Chang Ucchin (b. 1917-1990), a key figure in modern Korean art, was born in Yeongi County, Chungcheongnam-do. While attending Kyungsung Second High School, he became deeply engaged in painting through extracurricular activities in the school’s art club, but was expelled after protesting against a Japanese history teacher. He subsequently studied in the studios of various painters and sculptors before transferring, at the age of twenty, to Yangjeong High School as a student athlete. He later enrolled at the Teikoku Art School in Tokyo and, upon returning to Korea, joined Kim Whanki and Yoo Youngkuk in 1948 as a founding member of the New Realism group (Sinsasilpa), seeking new directions for modern Korean art. Chang’s paintings are mostly small in scale and center on familiar, everyday motifs such as trees, houses, birds, children, villages, and livestock. Among these, the house recurs as an especially significant motif, functioning as an emotional and symbolic locus within his work. Rendering his subjects in unembellished and simplified forms, he nonetheless achieved a high degree of compositional precision and chromatic density. The tension between structural condensation and formal restraint, coupled with a finely calibrated sense of balance, defines the distinct character of his practice. Depicting everyday surroundings, neighbors, and at times Buddhist themes, Chang distilled life to its essential forms. His pared-down imagery evokes a serene, timeless world in which the home becomes a spiritual refuge and humanity exists in gentle harmony with nature. Throughout his life, Chang relocated several times, and these changes of residence correspond to shifts in subject matter and painterly approach. Accordingly, his oeuvre is often divided into the Deokso (1963–1975), Myeongnyundong (1975–1979), Suanbo (1980–1985), and Yongin (1986–1990) periods.
From 1954, Chang taught at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, while continuing artistic practice, and in 1964 held the first solo exhibition at Bando Gallery. Major solo exhibitions followed at Gallery SPACE (1974, 1981) and Kukje Gallery(1986), establishing a distinctive position in modern and contemporary Korean painting. After passing away, retrospectives were held at Hoam Museum of Art (1995), and Gallery Hyundai (2000). Most recently, The Most Honest Confession: Chang Ucchin Retrospective at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2023) reexamined the artist’s oeuvre. Currently, Seeping and Remaining: Chang Ucchin Ink Paintings is on view at the Chang Ucchin Museum of Art Yangju through April 5, 2026, which will be followed by a solo exhibition opening in April 2026 at Gangneung Art Museum Sorol. The Chang Ucchin Museum of Art in Yangju opened in 2014 and continues to preserve and present the legacy. His works are held in the collections of MMCA; Leeum Museum of Art, Chang Ucchin Museum of Art, Yangju; and the Chang Ucchin Foundation for Art and Culture.
Suh Se Ok (b. 1929, Daegu, South Korea; d. 2020, Seoul, South Korea) received a BFA from the Oriental Painting department of Seoul National University in 1950. Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea (2021) and New York, NY (2018); Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, South Korea (2016); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul, South Korea (2015); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (2008); Maison Hermes, Tokyo, Japan (2007); Daejeon Museum of Art, South Korea (2007); and Uijae Museum of Korean Art, Gwangju, South Korea (2003), among others. Selected group exhibitions and international biennials featuring his work include Korean Modern and Contemporary Art: The Echoes of the Times, Ulsan Art Museum, South Korea (2024); Strolling through Nature: The Dongsan Park Joohwan, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Gwacheon, South Korea (2023); Three Generations: Remembering Suh Se Ok (1929-2020), Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea (2022); The new beginning of donation, Gwangju Museum of Art, South Korea (2022); Fear or Love, Seoul Museum, South Korea (2022); A Season of Meditation, Daegu Art Museum, South Korea (2022); Modern Life, Daegu Art Museum, South Korea (2021); MMCA Collection Highlight 2020+, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul, South Korea (2020); be/longing, Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong (2020), Beyond Line: The Art of Korean Writing, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA (2019); Another History of Korean Modern Art, Seoul National University Museum of Art, South Korea (2016); Shin Okjin Collection, Seoul National University Museum of Art, South Korea (2015); Beyond and Between, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2014); Then and Now, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Deoksugung, Seoul, South Korea (2014); Closer to Contemporary Art II - Abstract Art is Real, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, South Korea (2013); Art is Alive, Busan Biennial, South Korea (2008); and the 7th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (1963), among others.
Suh received the Order of Cultural Merit—Gold Crown in 2021, and Silver Crown in 2012—from the South Korean government and was awarded the Seokjae Cultural Prize in 2022; 52nd National Academy of Arts Award of the Republic of Korea in 2007; First Prize of 13th Arts and Culture Awards from the Federation of Artistic and Cultural Organization of Korea in 1999; Ilmin Art Award in 1994; an honorary doctor of fine arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1988; and Prime Minister Prize at the 1st National Art Exhibition in 1949. His work is in numerous international public and private collections, including the British Museum, London, United Kingdom; Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan; Hoam Museum, Yongin, South Korea; Ministry of Culture, Paris, France; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada; Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea; Seoul National University Museum of Art, South Korea; Wooyang Art Museum, Gyeongju, South Korea; USC Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA; Wonkwang University Museum, Iksan, South Korea; and the Yonsei University Museum, Seoul, South Korea.
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