Korean Modernist Artists to Know Ahead of RM x SFMOMA

Why Korean Modernism Matters Now

The upcoming RM x SFMOMA exhibition, opening October 3, 2026, places Korean modernist and contemporary art on one of the biggest stages in the American museum world. For visitors who want to understand what they will see, this guide introduces the key Korean artists in RM's collection and the broader movement they belong to. Korean modernism developed in parallel with but largely independent of Euro-American art history, and the SFMOMA show is a rare opportunity to see that parallel history in person in the United States.

The exhibition brings together 200 works from RM's personal collection and SFMOMA's holdings, with Korean artists including Yun Hyong-keun, Park Rehyun, Kwon Okyon, Kim Yun Shin, To Sangbong, Chang Ucchin, Kim Whanki, Han Youngsoo, and Wonwoo Lee. These artists span most of the 20th century and into the present, covering Korean modernism from its early 20th-century origins through the Dansaekhwa monochrome painting movement of the 1970s and beyond. Understanding who they are and how their work relates to the Western modernists they will be shown alongside is essential for anyone visiting the exhibition or trying to follow the conversation it will generate.

Kim Whanki: The Pioneer of Korean Abstraction

Kim Whanki (1913-1974) is widely regarded as the pioneer of Korean abstract painting. His early work drew from Korean folk imagery and landscape traditions, but he moved steadily toward abstraction during his years in Paris and New York. His late paintings, made in the final years of his life, consist of dense fields of small dots and lines on canvas, building up luminous surfaces that seem to glow from within. SFMOMA holds a major Kim Whanki work, "26-I-70" (1970), donated by the artist's widow, which will be on view in the exhibition.

Kim Whanki's work has been gaining international recognition over the past decade, with major exhibitions in Korea and abroad. His paintings now sell for eight-figure sums at auction, and his influence on younger Korean artists is difficult to overstate. For anyone interested in the relationship between Korean and Western abstraction, Kim Whanki is the essential starting point. His years in Paris (1953-1959) and New York (1963-1974) put him in direct contact with the postwar art world, but his work remained rooted in Korean visual culture and philosophical traditions. The SFMOMA exhibition pairs his work with pieces from the museum's own collection, creating visual conversations that have never been available to American audiences before.

Yun Hyong-keun and the Dansaekhwa Movement

Yun Hyong-keun (1928-2007) is one of the central figures of Dansaekhwa, the Korean monochrome painting movement that emerged in the 1970s. His paintings use burnt umber and ultramarine pigments mixed with turpentine, applied to raw canvas or hemp, where the pigment bleeds and pools into deep, glowing fields of color. The results are visually austere but materially rich, with surfaces that record the physical process of their making. Yun's work will be shown alongside Mark Rothko's "No. 14" (1960) from SFMOMA's collection, a pairing that reveals the shared interest in luminous darkness that connects these two artists despite their very different contexts.

Dansaekhwa has become the most internationally recognized movement in Korean modern art. Works by Yun Hyong-keun, Park Seo-bo, Lee Ufan, and others have entered major museum collections worldwide over the past decade. The movement's emphasis on material process and repetitive gesture connects it to Western movements like Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, but its philosophical roots in Korean calligraphy and Buddhist tradition give it a distinct character. Yun's biography is inseparable from the political history of Korea in the 20th century: he was imprisoned during the Korean War and later blacklisted by the military government, experiences that gave his later paintings a gravity that transcends their formal properties. For an introduction to Dansaekhwa, the Kukje Gallery in Seoul, which represents Yun's estate, is a good starting point.

Chang Ucchin and Han Youngsoo: Korean Life in Paint and Photo

Not every Korean artist in RM's collection is an abstractionist. Chang Ucchin (1917-1990) painted scenes of Korean rural life with a naive directness that bypasses the usual categories of modern art. His "The River Scene" (1988), which will be in the SFMOMA exhibition, shows a landscape rendered in flat, bright colors, with houses, trees, and water arranged in a composition that owes more to Korean folk painting than to any Western movement. Chang's work offers a counterpoint to the abstraction of Kim Whanki and Yun Hyong-keun, reminding viewers that Korean modernism was never a single style or direction. His paintings are modest in scale but generous in spirit, and their inclusion in a show dominated by large-format abstraction provides a necessary change of register.

Han Youngsoo (1933-1999) was a photographer, not a painter, and his work brings a documentary dimension to the collection. His photographs of Seoul in the 1950s and 1960s, including images of Deoksugung Palace, capture the texture of Korean life during the postwar period of reconstruction and rapid change. Han's work will be shown alongside the Western modernist works in the exhibition, where it provides a ground-level view of the Korea that the painters in the collection were processing in their own ways. His images are formally precise and emotionally restrained, qualities that connect them to the documentary photography traditions of both East and West. The Han Youngsoo Foundation maintains an archive of his work and regularly mounts exhibitions in Seoul.

Kwon Okyon, Park Rehyun, and Kim Yun Shin

Three additional Korean artists in RM's collection deserve attention. Kwon Okyon (born 1946) builds heavily textured surfaces through a process of repeated layering and removal, creating paintings that are more sculpture than painting in their physical presence. Her works resist reproduction: photographs cannot convey the depth and complexity of their surfaces, which must be experienced in person. Park Rehyun (1921-1976) was a painter and printmaker whose work moved between figuration and abstraction, often incorporating Korean textile patterns and calligraphic marks into compositions that feel both contemporary and deeply traditional. Her presence in the collection reflects a broader commitment to women artists in Korean modernism, who have historically received less attention than their male counterparts.

Kim Yun Shin (born 1935) is a sculptor whose carved wooden works, with titles like "Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One," reflect a mathematical approach to form that is both playful and rigorous. Her sculptures will be shown alongside SFMOMA's collection works, and their presence in the exhibition expands the conversation beyond painting into three-dimensional work. Kim Yun Shin's career, which includes decades of teaching and exhibition in Korea and internationally, represents the institutional infrastructure that supported Korean modernism even during periods of political turmoil. The Kukje Gallery and PKM Gallery in Seoul both represent artists in this circle and are essential destinations for anyone visiting the Korean art scene.

How to See Korean Art Beyond SFMOMA

For visitors inspired by the RM x SFMOMA exhibition to explore Korean art further, several institutions and galleries are worth knowing. In Seoul, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) has branches in Gwacheon, Deoksugung, Seoul, and Cheongju, with collections spanning the full range of Korean modern and contemporary art. The Leeum Museum of Art, run by the Samsung Foundation, holds significant Korean modernist works alongside international contemporary art. The PKM Gallery and Kukje Gallery, both in Seoul, represent several of the artists in RM's collection and regularly mount exhibitions that are worth seeking out.

In the United States, Korean art has been gaining institutional traction. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has built significant Korean holdings over the past decade. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a Korean gallery in its Arts of Korea wing. The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art maintains a Korean collection. For those who cannot travel, many of these institutions have substantial online collections where works by the artists in the SFMOMA exhibition can be studied in detail. The ARTnews coverage of related exhibitions provides useful context on how these artists are being received in Western institutions.

The RM x SFMOMA exhibition runs through February 7, 2027. Admission includes a surcharge of $10 on weekdays and $12 on weekends, with free entry for SFMOMA members. The museum is offering an Encore Pass at $75, which allows unlimited visits to the exhibition during its run. Given the rarity of seeing this concentration of Korean modernist work in the United States, repeat visits may reward those who want to spend time with individual works. The exhibition catalogue, when available, will be an essential resource for anyone looking to go deeper into the work of these artists. In the meantime, the scholarly literature on Dansaekhwa has been growing rapidly, with publications from major university presses and art journals addressing the movement's history, materials, and philosophical foundations. For collectors and enthusiasts inspired by RM's example, the Korean art market has become increasingly accessible through international auction houses and gallery partnerships, with works by many of the artists in this guide now available through sales in Seoul, Hong Kong, and New York. The combination of institutional recognition, scholarly attention, and market infrastructure means that Korean modernism is no longer a hidden chapter but an active and evolving field of cultural production.