Kim Gyu-Jin

Born: 1868

Death: 1933

Biography:

Kim Gyu-jin lived during a time of political and social transition—through the last decades of the 500-year-old Joseon dynasty. As an eighteen-year-old, the artist, enamored with Western art, began to study painting in earnest under the tutelage of his father Kim Eung-won (1834–1902), a renowned painter and calligrapher who had been trained by the court painters at Gyeongbokgung Palace. In 1886, he was selected as one of three students to study painting in Japan under Kawabata Gyokushō (1842–1913), a leading figure in the Shijō school and an influential teacher who introduced Western techniques into his work. Kim returned to Korea in 1887, where he continued to develop his own style by combining traditional Korean painting with elements of Japanese and European art.