Abstraction Meets Korean Lyricism: Yoo Youngkuk’s Mountain Series in Postwar Korea

Abstract Yoo Youngkuk (1916–2002) was one of Korea’s leading avant-garde artists who initiated the Korean modern art scene through his abstract landscape paintings. Much of his oeuvre centered on one major subject that Yoo favored throughout his life: the Korean mountains. By examining Yoo’s preoccupation with the depiction of mountain chains and his commitment to promoting progressive art groups dedicated to abstraction in Korea, this paper examines how the artist, inspired by both local traditions and Euro-Japanese Modernism, distilled the intractable beauty of Korean mountains to essential forms and colors. Yoo’s works came to constitute a visual manifestation of Korean lyricism.