Ro Eun-nim, nurse-turned-painter, dies at 76 in Germany
Germany-based multidisciplinary artist Ro Eun-nim died Tuesday at the age of 76. Courtesy of Gana Art CenterBy Park Han-solGermany-based painter Ro Eun-nim, who was best known for bringing to life semi-abstract representations of fish, birds, mammals and flowers on canvas as a vibrant ode to nature, died Tuesday after battling cancer. She was 76. Born in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, in 1946, Ro made the decision to move to Germany in 1970 at the age of 24 shortly after her mother's sudden death.From the 1960s to the 1970s, the Park Chung-hee government dispatched over 10,000 nurses and nearly 8,000 mine workers to West Germany to obtain foreign capital and economic aid that was much needed in the country, which at the time, was still recovering from the 1950-53 Korean War.Ro was part of that wave of mass migration, landing a job as a nurse's aide in a hospital in Hamburg.One day, when she came down with a cold and had to miss work, she got a visit from the chief nursing officer. Little did she know then that that day would forever change her life.The officer, who came across Ro's p
Oct 19, 2022By Park Han-sol
