Kwon Jin-Kyu

The bust of a woman rises on a long neck, eyes half closed, facing forward. The surface is unsmoothed; the grain of clay and lacquer stays visible. Kwon Jin-Kyu trained as a sculptor in Japan and built a studio in Dongseon-dong, Seoul. In a period given over to bronze he held to terracotta and dry lacquer, and even with a model in front of him he worked by subtraction rather than likeness. The same is true of his self-portraits. Almost nothing sold in his lifetime and the art world passed him by. He took his own life in his studio in 1973. He is now regarded as the high point of modern Korean sculpture.