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National Registered Cultural Heritage

Sigol sonyeo (A Country Girl)

시골소녀 ( 시골少女 )

Heritage Search Detail
Classification National Registered Cultural Heritage
Name of Cultural Properties Sigol sonyeo (A Country Girl)
Quantity 1 item
Designated Date 2013.02.21
Age 1928
Address 313, Gwangmyeong-ro, Gwacheon, Gyeonggi-do

Yi Yeong-il (pen-name: Chuncheon) produced many colored paintings between the 1920s and 1930s. After winning the third prize at the Joseon Fine Arts Exhibition in 1925, he went on to win the special prize for seven consecutive years. However, he ceased painting after the country’s liberation in 1945. This painting, which depicts a girl holding a child on her back and her younger sister, shows the painter’s delicate expressive ability through the girls’ facial expressions, postures, and clothes. The red skirts and the blue baby blanket create a distinct contrast in the scene, while the smooth thin lines used to form the contours seem to have been influenced by Japanese-style paintings. Discovered in a storehouse at Changdeokgung Palace, the painting was opened to the public for the first time in 1971 at an exhibition titled “The 60-Year History of Korean Modern Art.” It is currently kept by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The painting holds an important position in the history of Korean art during the Japanese Colonial Period, and is the most renowned work of Yi Yeong-il, few of whose paintings have survived to the present day.