Biography of Kim En Joong OP
Félix Hernández OP
Translated by Yanette Shalter
His childhood and youth
Kim En Joong was born into a large family on September 10th 1940 in Booyo, South Korea, during the Japanese occupation. His father, a humble calligrapher, took care of his eight children and brought them up in line with the Taoist tradition.
Nothing during his early childhood suggested that, one day, he might feel attracted to the arts. His family’s material living conditions did not leave any space for such concerns either; their only worry, at the time, was survival.
Just like other children, Kim spent his first years running happily through fields speckled with modest straw houses, jumping over streams and shouting across rice paddies with other boys of his age. Although he was still unaware of the daily deprivations and misery that forty years of Japanese occupation had caused in his village, he did know what hunger felt like. However, the love of his kin and the wisdom of his people compensated for all the material shortages.
Another important event that marked our artist’s childhood was when he discovered the reality of death, namely that of his grandmother. In his family’s house, the weeping, the ceremonial, the superstitions, the long rituals, the incomprehension of it all filled him with terror and affliction. The presence of ancient, often mortal gods, living amidst Nature, did not suffice to dissipate the child’s fears.
The presence of death mixing in with beauty at any moment, this idea of nothingness never left him throughout his teenage years; it sowed a series of questions in his mind, of human and religious concerns to which he was to find no answers until many years later. One of his biographers wrote the following: ‘By resisting death and oblivion, Kim, then a 15-year-old teenager, came to yearn to not disappear from the world of the living without leaving a trace of his passage; this longing for success and recognition lasted throughout time.’
In 1946, with the liberation of Korea and the Japanese retreat, the family moved to Daejeon. The boy experienced this move with emotion, fascinated by all the novelties offered by the city: in the shop windows he discovered electric light and colourful printed magazines left behind by the invaders8. Between 1947 and 1959, he attended primary and secondary school.
This was when the war broke out and the horror of violence, the refugees’ calamity, death and ruin once again struck the young man’s life.
This experience reinforced the feeling of precariousness that accompanied Kim for years, but over time, he forged a deep desire to achieve some success that would transcend death.
Kim did not draw much in those days; at school he was merely asked to copy models from books, a chore he did not enjoy. Over the course of his secondary studies, art was not given much importance either. In a country that was just coming out of an armed conflict, priority was laid on language, mathematics and protest demonstrations against the state of the torn land. At that time, one hour per week even had to be dedicated to military training in view of defending the nation against communists.
In spite of all this, in secondary school, Kim started practising the art of calligraphy at the age of twelve and painting watercolours at seventeen. While he developed these skills, his admiration for his father, who worked in a textile company at the time, played a decisive role. Kim would attentively observe his meticulous work, the delicacy with which he would ready his instruments, the precision of his purposeful moves.
His first works were immediately recognised by his teachers, who encouraged him to orient his career toward the graphic arts. Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, he followed optional drawing courses taught by a secondary school teacher who helped a group of pupils outside of the official curriculum to prepare for the entrance exams of the School of Fine Arts.
His parents’ reaction upon discovering their son’s intentions was not a positive one; they felt disappointed, because they had hoped he would take up a less precarious profession which would enable the family to overcome its financial difficulties. This was not a particularly stimulating period for youngsters interested in fine arts, as such studies were not considered to lead to well-paid positions.
In spite of all this and of the fact that Kim believed he was artistically less gifted than his classmates, he prepared for and took the entrance exam to University. In 1959 he was admitted to the School of Fine Arts of Seoul.
The artist
His four years of studies were interrupted by the revolution of the art students in 1960, and then by the requirements of a very strict military training that took place between 1961 and 1962 in the school itself.
Those were hard times due to the financial hardships of his family. Kim had very little money and had to come up with his own materials. He prepared his paints himself by mixing pigments with petroleum, and he made his own canvases by sewing together North American bags of flour. Since he did not have any secure place to store his work, his entire production over that period was lost.
This was also, however, the period during which Kim discovered a whole new world thanks to young teachers who were returning from Paris. Western modern art with all its teachings, movements, tendencies—impressionism, cubism—and above all, its none-figurative vision of painting immediately captivated his soul.
The great efforts he made during those years paid off. His mentors began to show interest in Kim’s work and, in 1962, two successes confirmed the path he had chosen. He managed to be among the three best entrants in a contest opened to young painters, organized by a Korean newspaper on the occasion of a modern art exhibition, and he won the special award for non-figurative artworks in the contest of the 1962 annual exhibition.
Then came his time to serve in the military, which lasted from 1963 to 1965. Commissioned in 1963 as second lieutenant in the infantry, he underwent a three-month training before he was sent to the front.
Kim served during the Vietnam War, on the border between the two Koreas12 where he suffered tremendously from the division of his country. This war led him to understand the true meaning of death.
In the army he dedicated much time to sports (volleyball), but above all to his great passion. He drew a lot and was even able to present some of his works at the following annual exhibitions. In addition, with the intention of pursuing his university education, he prepared for and took the exam which opened the door to a graduate course, and he started studying French.
At the end of his military service, he was strongly encouraged to continue painting by a US art critic who published a laudatory article in the newspaper of the capital, in which he asserted that Kim’s was the best among all the works exhibited in the national painting contest. On top of this, the expert highlighted the fact that the painting submitted by our artist alone made it worth-while to visit the exhibition.
Thus, relieved of his military duties, Kim decided once and for all to dedicate himself to painting.
A Catholic and a Dominican
Yet he also needed to find a job that would enable him to earn a living. In 1965 he got hired as a drawing teacher’s assistant in the Catholic Youth Seminary of Seoul. It was in this minor seminary that he first felt the draw of transcendence and spiritual life.
One morning as he was arriving as usual to teach his classes, he stopped in front of the Hai Wha church. Curiosity first led him to enter the temple, but then the beauty of the liturgy seduced him in such a way that he got used to attending the celebrations daily. He was greatly surprised to discover catholicism and attended each ceremony attentively. In this atmosphere he could feel the mystery of this unique God, the death and resurrection of his son Jesus, the immortality of souls, the commandments which had unknowingly guided him throughout his life, and the message of love. Everything delighted him in such a way that, little by little, he was overtaken by the desire to explore Christianity more in depth. This aspiration overwhelmed him with the same force as had his passion for art in the past.
Thanks to this encounter he finally found answers to the spiritual concerns that had accompanied him since childhood.
He sensed a new dimension, the ever-growing presence of another world, another eternity, which put into perspective all the aspirations he had hosted so far. And the cross15, the mystery of a God who knows human pain, who suffers and who dies, filling our precariousness with meaning and life, was decisive when, in early 1967, Kim asked to be baptised. He received this sacrament on June 28th.
Meanwhile, as he went deeper into his conversion process, he also received more and more recognition as an artist.
In 1965 he was awarded the first prize of a Korean exhibition in Pusan, and in 1967 he set up his first individual exhibition, where he sold various paintings.
At this point Kim En Joong was torn between his two passions: art and a new idea that was making its way ever more deeply into his soul . . . the will to dedicate his life to God. The artist did not know yet whether it was going to be possible to reconcile the two or whether, on the contrary, he would have to sacrifice one for the other.
The year 1969 marked another turning point in his life. Kim En Joong became aware of an ambition that had been growing in his inner self since his years of higher education: to study and settle in Europe. This intimate desire started to take shape when he received a scholarship from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Hoping to find some answers to his vocational doubts on the new continent, Kim embarked on the adventure with nothing but his plane ticket and a hundred-dollar bill in his pocket.
After a three-day journey he landed in Paris where he remained for three more days thanks to the selfless help of various people, whom he randomly met along the way. In 1969 he arrived in Fribourg where he established his residence. To earn a living he worked during the summer holidays in Bern and later in Zurich, as a night watchman.
Once enrolled in the University of Fribourg, the young man soon left the Department of History of Art, because those classes did not meet his expectations. Instead, he went as an unregistered student to attend theology classes, which he followed with diligence and interest, especially the metaphysics courses taught by Fr. Geiger, a Dominican whom Kim admired deeply for his human and religious qualities.
Shortly thereafter, at an exhibition in Fribourg, he also met the Dominican Fr Pfister, a teacher of Dominican students who was charmed by the young man’s work and who invited him to his convent, offering him a space in the basement to use as a study. At this moment, in the artist’s heart, an invisible thread seemed to appear, like a hyphen between his first passion and the new one, drawing him to the Absolute. This link was nourished by the attitude of his brothers toward contemporary art.
One year later, after many intense meetings, conversations, and long considerations, Kim ended up applying to enter the Order of Preachers.
He did his noviciate in 1970 and continued painting. He took his first vows as a Dominican in 1971 and the following year he was sent to Paris for two years to continue his studies at the Institut Catholique. During his stay he was deeply moved by the writings of Fr Sertillanges regarding life and death. He was also confirmed in his vocation by Fr Menasce who, against all those who believed it was impossible to be a priest and a painter at the same time, used to tell him: “God respects what he has entrusted unto men. Carry on. Pray to Fra Angélico”18.
In the Dominican convent of the Annunciation he met Fr Avril and Fr Lelong who were to support him from then on in his efforts to mature in his work and life as a painter.
In the summer of 1973 he visited Alsace and Provence and, in December of the same year, he set up his first exhibition in Paris in the Galerie Jacques Massol, displaying watercolours and works on paper in black and white. Here, M Anthonioz purchased a work for the State.
Back in Fribourg in 1974 he made solemn profession as a Dominican and was ordained a priest on October 27th 1974. In November, after going through Japan, he returned to Korea where he informed his family of his new life, and baptised one of his brothers and one of his sisters. A few months later, during the celebration of St Thomas Aquinas in 1975, he baptised his parents.
When he returned to Europe in that same year of 1975, he was assigned to the Convent of the Annunciation in Paris: it became his home, and still remains so to this day.
Taken from Theology of Contemporary Art, Félix Hernández OP, translated by Yanette Shalter, ATF Theology, 2018.