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Two Kyŏnghŭi (1918) Na Hye-sŏk The daughter of a well-established family in Suwŏn, in Kyŏnggi Province, Na Hye-sŏk (1896–1948; pen name, Chŏngwŏl) attended Chinmyŏng Girls’ School in Seoul, where her exceptional intelligence and artistic talent in painting were widely known. Upon her graduation from high school, Na, encouraged by her Japan-educated elder brother, proceeded to Japan in 1913 to study Western oil painting at the Private School of Fine Arts for Women in Tokyo.1 At the college, Na became a quick convert to feminism under the powerful influence of the Japanese feminist movement led by the Seitō (Bluestockings) group, as is evident in her first essay, written at age eighteen , “Isangjŏk puin” (Ideal women; Hakchigwang [Light of learning], no. 3, 1914).2 During her college years, Na served as secretary to the Korean Women Students’ Association in Japan and played a vital role in the publication of its journal, Yŏjagye (Women’s world), in which Na’s first short story and masterwork , “Kyŏnghŭi,” was published (no. 2, March 1918). When she graduated in April 1918, she became the first Korean woman painter with a BA degree. Back in Korea, Na taught fine arts at various high schools, but her involvement in anti-Japanese activities during the March 1919 Independence Movement ended her teaching career and led as well to a five-month imprisonment. She was released from prison at the end of 1919. In April 1920, Na married a Japan-educated lawyer and widower, Kim U-yŏng, who had courted her since her student days in Japan.3 Toward the end of 1920, Na briefly returned to Japan to further her study of painting. Her subsequent one-person show, held in Seoul in March 1921, was the first of its kind and a sensational event, generating wide publicity and fascinating the public.4 Na’s growing stature as a painter was nationally recognized by June 1922, when her paintings were 24 accepted for the first Annual Korean National Art Exhibition, held in Seoul. She was the only Korean woman thus honored, having successfully competed against Japanese artists. In 1923, Na left Korea to live in Andong, Manchuria, where her husband held the post of vice-consul general for the Japanese Foreign Ministry. They stayed there until 1927. During this period Na, a mother of three children, established her artistic reputation by successively winning official recognition at the Annual Korean National Art Exhibition between 1923 and 1927. Na also contributed a number of critical essays on art and culture to such newspapers and magazines as Tonga ilbo, Chosŏn ilbo, Kaebyŏk, and Sinyŏsŏng (New women). Her second short story, “Wŏnhan” (Grudges; Chosŏn mundan [Korean literary world], April 1926), the tragedy of a tradition-bound wife struggling with her husband’s sexual promiscuity, is a product of this period. From 1927 to 1929 Na traveled with her diplomat husband on a world tour, sponsored by the Japanese government for her husband’s exemplary service in Manchuria, and thus became the first Korean woman to travel to Europe and America.5 Making the most of this opportunity, Na took up painting lessons in Paris for about eight months. Occasionally she also accompanied her husband, who traveled around European countries on diplomatic missions and for legal studies. This tour presented Na with many occasions to carefully observe European culture, arts, customs, family life, and women—topics that she would write about extensively in later publications.6 Leaving Europe in September 1928, Na and her husband headed for New York, and after their travels in the United States, they returned to Korea in March 1929 via Hawai‘i and Japan. About six months after her return, Na held a homecoming art show on September 23 and 24, 1929, in Suwŏn, her hometown , exhibiting the paintings she completed in Europe together with facsimile prints she acquired in Europe of works by European painters—another landmark in Korean art history. In spite of her responsibilities as a mother now of four small children, Na consecutively won admittance to the Annual Korean National Art Exhibition from 1930 to 1932 and to the Twelfth Japanese Arts Academy Exhibition, the most prestigious show in Japan, held in Tokyo in October 1931. During this period, Na was sought after by magazines and newspapers for interviews and articles regarding her observations about her world travels and...

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