Kim Tŭksin

Biography

Few coherent facts about Kim Tŭksin have survived, and I will not pretend there are more.

He was born in 1754 into the family of the court painter Kim Eungri. His father taught him drawing and painting. He followed in his father’s footsteps: he entered the Dohwaseo, the official service of court painters at the Joseon court, and worked within that system. The family’s ancestral seat was Kaesong. His courtesy name was Hyeonbo and his literary names Gyeongjae and Hongwolheon. He held a post on the island of Chodo, by some accounts as an inspector, by others as the island’s military commander, so his service was not confined to the brush and court commissions. There are no details of what he did there or for how long. Other members of the family also painted: his brother and son became artists. Kim Tŭksin himself is known first of all as a master of pungsokhwa, genre painting, that is, scenes of ordinary life, and of landscapes. In this he is named in the same breath as Kim Hong-do, who is known by the art name Danwon. His surviving works are scattered among Seoul collections: an album of genre scenes and “Night Rain on the Xiao and Xiang Rivers” are in the Kansong Art Museum, “Returning from the Market” is in the Korea University Museum, “The Banquet of Guo Ziyi” is in the Deoksugung museum, and “A Dog Barking at the Moon under a Paulownia” remains in private hands. His paintings are less well known outside Korea than those of Kim Hong-do. In Europe they became known after an exhibition in 1961–1962 that showed genre paintings from a private collection in Seoul.

He died in 1822; by some accounts this is the exact date of his death, by others he lived longer. Where he died is unknown.