Kim Tschang-Yeul is one of the greatest Korean painters. Born in 1929 in the north of the then unified Korea, he migrated to the south to escape the communist regime. He subsequently left for New York to pursue his artistic dreams before finally settling in Paris in 1969. There, he began to nurture, over a period of forty years, a unique motif: the drop of water. The waterdrop was the starting point for a singular and iconic body of work, which stands at the confluence of lyrical abstraction, Pop art and Chinese calligraphy. This simple and limpid œuvre subtly fuses Taoist wisdom, modern conceptual irony and the tragedy of war.



Kim Tschang-Yeul is considered one of the pre-eminent figures in the establishment of contemporary Korean art on the international scene, alongside Nam-June Paik and Lee Ufan. His work has been shown around the world, Jeu de Paume National Gallery, Paris, 2004, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, 2006, Busan Museum of Art, Korea, 2009, Taiwan National Museum of Fine Art, Taichung, 2012, Gwangju Museum of Art, Korea, 2014, Kim Tschang-Yeul Art Museum, South Korea, 2018, and Almine Rech Gallery, New York, 2018.