- Title
- Seoul, Korea 1956-1963
- Culture
- Korean
- Date Made
- Post 1945, 1956–1963, printed 2019
- Medium
- Toned gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- 16 × 20 in. (40.64 × 50.8 cm)
Image: 12 × 18 in. (30.48 × 45.72 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2019.232.18
- Collecting Area
- Chinese and Korean Art
- Curatorial Notes
During a time when photography was used primarily as documentation for newspaper reportage, Han Young-soo captured Seoul’s rapid transformation from war-torn city to modern metropolis in the 1950s and 1960s—a critical transitional period leading up to Korea’s first democracy. Han’s street portraits, taken with two Leica cameras that always hung around his neck (at a time when owning a camera was rare), show an impeccable eye for social detail and the serendipitous moment. Infused with optimism, his images established a unique style of portraying everyday Koreans, old and young, as they were, and not as a victimized people. Photo critics have noted the humanist sensibility shared with André Kertész, Robert Doisneau, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as “uncanny overlaps” with the photographic work of Constructivist Alexander Rodchenko. Here, men and women relax in front of a low wall in the Myeong-dong, Seoul’s main commercial district. The woman, in a silky flowing dress, shades herself with a parasol. For Han Youngsoo, perhaps the “decisive moment” in this scene was the lone hat and shirt, sans man, hanging from pegs on the stone wall.
Virginia Moon
2021