Byun Shi-ji's works return from Smithsonian
"Boisterous Dance" by Byun Shi-ji / Courtesy of Foundation Art Shiji
By Kwon Mee-yoo
The late Jeju artist Byun Shi-ji's paintings gave been returned home from the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Foundation Art Shiji, operated by the artist's son Joung-hoon, said the two artworks were retrieved as the 10-year contract with the Smithsonian Institution expired.
Often dubbed as "artist of the storm," Byun is known as the painter of Jeju as many of his works featured iconic objects and scenery of Jeju Island such as "haenyeo" (female divers of Jeju), stone houses with thatched roofs, horses and the sea.
"Jeju is a lonely, solitary island of exiles. People try to avoid solitude. I embrace it, internalize it," the artist was quoted saying,
In 2007, two of his works ― "Boisterous Dance" and "Going the way as it is" ― were exhibited at the Korea Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution on a 10-year loan. He was one of the two living Korean artists to receive the honor. The paintings feature a lone man and a horse, iconic to Jeju Island.
Carole Neves, then-director of policy and analysis at the Smithsonian, discovered Byun during her visit to the southern island and wrote, "I am fortunate to have a few drawings by the greatest living treasure of Korea."
Byun was born in 1926 in Seogwipo on Jeju Island. He moved to Japan at the age of six and studied art at the Osaka Art School, majoring in oil painting. He started his artistic career in Japan and became the youngest person to win the Grand Prize of the Kofukai exhibition.
He returned to Seoul in 1957 and painted actively there, until he returned to his hometown island as a professor of Jeju National University in 1975. Since then, the artist continued his works embracing the nature of Jeju.
Byun passed away in 2013.