iSeoul Museum of ArtSeosomun-dong, Jung-gu
2026 Korean Modern Masters: Yoo Youngkuk — A Mountain Within Me
This exhibition has ended.
A comprehensive retrospective marking the 110th birth anniversary of abstract pioneer Yoo Youngkuk, with over 170 works and archival materials spanning six decades, opening SeMA's new Korean Modern Masters series.
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"The mountain is not something before me, it is within me." Yoo Youngkuk wrote that in 1977, and it greets you at the door. Behind it are about 170 works, 115 of them oil paintings, in which the steep hills of his hometown, Uljin, turn into triangles of red, blue, green and purple.
The show starts in 1964, when Yoo, at 48, quit the family brewery and fishing work and held his first solo show, then runs back to his 1930s studies in Tokyo and forward to his last painting, from 1999. You walk from thick, textured paint into cool geometry and back to softer mountains. He kept 9-to-6 studio hours until he died at 84, so these were painted on office hours.
It's popular: 300,000 visitors in about 100 days, and OhmyNews found the rooms crowded. Entry is free with timed booking on SeMA's site, Fridays run to 21:00, and a docent tour leaves at 11:00 Tuesday to Sunday. It closes 25 October.
Look for
The 1964 canvases
Large, intense oils from his first solo show, which the curator says shocked the Seoul art world with their energy that year.
Haeto (1961)
Frozen ground breaking up into a thaw, its paint laid down with what OhmyNews calls a knife-like force.
Mountain-Red and Mountain-Blue (1994)
Two of his largest canvases, from the late years when the mountain came back as a simplified silhouette in primary colour.
The lobby archive
Facsimile documents in the first-floor lobby, set up as both the way into the show and its final chapter.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You want an empty gallery: OhmyNews found the rooms crowded, and 300,000 visited in 100 days.
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Image credits
7
- Seoul Museum of Artgypsycrystal, CC BY 2.0
- Taehwagwan: A Space Weaving Together TimeCourtesy of Seoul Museum of History
- Ilgu Iryuk, Muhan Iryuk: 100 Years of Hangul DayCourtesy of National Museum of Korean Contemporary History
- MMCA DeoksugungKimhs5400 (블루시티), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Seoul Museum of HistoryJjw / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- National Museum of Korean Contemporary HistoryTrace84 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- National Palace Museum of KoreaJinho Jung, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0