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Lot Essay
“I continuously raise questions of human and nature, human and machine, and nature and machine. I would like to create a geometric and figurative world on canvas.” – Rhee Seundja
Rhee Seundja is an artist who has left a significant mark not only in the art world, but also with the personal connections she made throughout her life. Following the sale at Christie’s of the world record, Soiree des Enfants , in November 2018, we are very proud to offer this masterpiece from the same collection of French private collector, Mr. C. Over his years of friendship with the artist, Mr C. developed a deep appreciation for Rhee Seundja’s early work, and made significant contributions to her recognition in the national and international art world. Painted in 1960, Untitled is emblematic of the artist’s transition from her abstract period, to her peak Woman and Earth period.
GEOMETRIC FIGURATION AS A MODE OF EXPRESSION
Unlike her peers who had come from Asia to Paris for further exposure to the Western art world, Rhee Seundja did not receive formal artistic training before arriving in France in the late 1950s. The Academie de la Grande Chaumiere provided her with the artistic space she needed to grow and develop her own aesthetic language and identity, free from the need to bridge a gap between Eastern and Western cultural barriers. Her work as Henri Goetz’ assistant exposed her to lyrical abstraction and helped her shape her transition from figurative to abstract works, thus characterizing her as one of the most important Asian artists of the “Ecole de Paris” (Paris School), among Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh-Chun, and Kumi Sugai.
Untitled featured here is a masterpiece from Rhee’s early years, which displays multiple characteristics of her remarkable artistic development. This simple composition with a few geometric shapes in the work embodies her thinking, “I choose the triangle, square and circle as universal signs transcending time and borders.” The geometric shapes in Untitled and her statement might evoke Cezanne’s theory that influenced the general development of abstract art in Europe: “Everything in nature is composed of sphere, cone and cylinder. We must learn to paint with these simple figures.”
But what Rhee wanted to achieve in her work was quite different from most other Western abstract painters, who primarily focused on form only in their art. She wanted to pursue abstraction based on content, she reinterprets the world as she sees it and recomposes it upon the reflection of her own mind in relation to the universe around her. In this context, her geometric shapes are much closer to those in the painting by Sengai Gibon, a Japanese Zen monk who painted The Circle, Triangle and Square as symbols of the essential element of universe.
INSPIRATION, INFLUENCE, AND LEGACY
French art critic, Georges Boudaille, qualified her work as “an Oriental poem soaking its way through a modern shape.” Free to explore according to her inner affinities, Rhee Seundja was able to cultivate subjects dear to her: colour and nature. Her refusal to settle into a particular style and to maintain her fame by nurturing the public’s expectations, led Rhee Seundja to constantly push her boundaries and explore new visual languages, but also new media, such as woodblock prints and even architecture.
As one of her first abstract works, Untitled perfectly introduces Rhee’s period “Woman and Earth” period (1961-1968), in which she first became a true master of her art. Here, circles of different sizes transpire across intricate layers of bright and pure colourful strokes, thus creating a deep and poignant visual to convey emotion. The painting displays a perfect balance between geometric shapes and exquisite texture, where one can feel the painstaking time consuming process of carefully applying each brushstroke.
This careful balance between colour combined with clearly outlined brushstrokes is strongly reminiscent of the Impressionists. Van Gogh for instance effectively created continuous movement, shapes, and moods through a balanced application of strokes where a modern and bold use of colour is the main tool of expression. Rhee Seundja further explored notions of colour and shape as an embodiment of herself. In this context, her work naturally paralleled that of the American Minimalists Frank Stella and Donald Judd, whose concerned lied in the visualisation of shape and contrasted colours in relation to the viewer.
In 1965 Rhee returned to Korea after living 15 years in Paris and exhibited more than 75 works. It was one of the biggest scale solo exhibitions to showcase abstract art in Korea and had a great resonance with the local art world. As her fame grew on the international scene, so did her expressive style, as she constantly matured from her trips abroad. Untitled is an important work, creating her identity and setting her path from earth to the cosmos, reflecting a shift in her perspective from her personal reality to probing more universal truths which transcend emotions of physical existence.
Rhee Seundja is an artist who has left a significant mark not only in the art world, but also with the personal connections she made throughout her life. Following the sale at Christie’s of the world record, Soiree des Enfants , in November 2018, we are very proud to offer this masterpiece from the same collection of French private collector, Mr. C. Over his years of friendship with the artist, Mr C. developed a deep appreciation for Rhee Seundja’s early work, and made significant contributions to her recognition in the national and international art world. Painted in 1960, Untitled is emblematic of the artist’s transition from her abstract period, to her peak Woman and Earth period.
GEOMETRIC FIGURATION AS A MODE OF EXPRESSION
Unlike her peers who had come from Asia to Paris for further exposure to the Western art world, Rhee Seundja did not receive formal artistic training before arriving in France in the late 1950s. The Academie de la Grande Chaumiere provided her with the artistic space she needed to grow and develop her own aesthetic language and identity, free from the need to bridge a gap between Eastern and Western cultural barriers. Her work as Henri Goetz’ assistant exposed her to lyrical abstraction and helped her shape her transition from figurative to abstract works, thus characterizing her as one of the most important Asian artists of the “Ecole de Paris” (Paris School), among Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh-Chun, and Kumi Sugai.
Untitled featured here is a masterpiece from Rhee’s early years, which displays multiple characteristics of her remarkable artistic development. This simple composition with a few geometric shapes in the work embodies her thinking, “I choose the triangle, square and circle as universal signs transcending time and borders.” The geometric shapes in Untitled and her statement might evoke Cezanne’s theory that influenced the general development of abstract art in Europe: “Everything in nature is composed of sphere, cone and cylinder. We must learn to paint with these simple figures.”
But what Rhee wanted to achieve in her work was quite different from most other Western abstract painters, who primarily focused on form only in their art. She wanted to pursue abstraction based on content, she reinterprets the world as she sees it and recomposes it upon the reflection of her own mind in relation to the universe around her. In this context, her geometric shapes are much closer to those in the painting by Sengai Gibon, a Japanese Zen monk who painted The Circle, Triangle and Square as symbols of the essential element of universe.
INSPIRATION, INFLUENCE, AND LEGACY
French art critic, Georges Boudaille, qualified her work as “an Oriental poem soaking its way through a modern shape.” Free to explore according to her inner affinities, Rhee Seundja was able to cultivate subjects dear to her: colour and nature. Her refusal to settle into a particular style and to maintain her fame by nurturing the public’s expectations, led Rhee Seundja to constantly push her boundaries and explore new visual languages, but also new media, such as woodblock prints and even architecture.
As one of her first abstract works, Untitled perfectly introduces Rhee’s period “Woman and Earth” period (1961-1968), in which she first became a true master of her art. Here, circles of different sizes transpire across intricate layers of bright and pure colourful strokes, thus creating a deep and poignant visual to convey emotion. The painting displays a perfect balance between geometric shapes and exquisite texture, where one can feel the painstaking time consuming process of carefully applying each brushstroke.
This careful balance between colour combined with clearly outlined brushstrokes is strongly reminiscent of the Impressionists. Van Gogh for instance effectively created continuous movement, shapes, and moods through a balanced application of strokes where a modern and bold use of colour is the main tool of expression. Rhee Seundja further explored notions of colour and shape as an embodiment of herself. In this context, her work naturally paralleled that of the American Minimalists Frank Stella and Donald Judd, whose concerned lied in the visualisation of shape and contrasted colours in relation to the viewer.
In 1965 Rhee returned to Korea after living 15 years in Paris and exhibited more than 75 works. It was one of the biggest scale solo exhibitions to showcase abstract art in Korea and had a great resonance with the local art world. As her fame grew on the international scene, so did her expressive style, as she constantly matured from her trips abroad. Untitled is an important work, creating her identity and setting her path from earth to the cosmos, reflecting a shift in her perspective from her personal reality to probing more universal truths which transcend emotions of physical existence.