August 2022

Koryo Studio Commission
‘Great Harvest of the Sea’ Linocut | Ship Building

Below we explore the ‘Great Harvest of the Sea’ (2011) piece by North Korean artist Hwang In Jae.

This piece is from the Koryo Studio commission ‘Ship Building’.

‘Great Harvest of the Sea’ 2011, Hwang In Jae | Ship Building

The composition and content of this particular linocut bear a strong resemblance to the work of French artist James Tissot (1836-1902s).

The piece is called ‘The Miraculous Draught of Fishes’, created between 1886-1896.

In both pieces, we see fishermen pulling in yet another haul into a boat already laden with fish.

Both works are allegorical; one promotes the value of socialism and the other, religion.

The idea of a bumper crop, or a bumper catch, is a common trope in the art of socialist realism and can be seen in many images. Below are a couple of further examples.

‘The Miraculous Draught of Fishes’

From a propaganda poster showing a bumper catch of fish.

Mosaic of bumper harvest at the People’s Palace of Culture, Pyongyang.

Great Harvest of the Sea (2011)

‘Great Harvest of the Sea’ is a remarkable piece by North Korea’s most famous contemporary linocut artist, Hwang In Jae. It’s part of a wider Koryo Studio commission ‘Ship Building‘.

It features great use of green inks with washes applied by hand. The piece was created as a run of only ten pieces. A mere handful remains unsold.

These are remarkable works and if ever there was a piece of Hwang’s to collect, then this is it.

Great Harvest of the Sea Background

‘Great Harvest of the Sea’ is from a series of linocuts commissioned in 2011 by Koryo Studio for the project ‘Ship Building’.

We wanted to tell the story of the seafaring industries in North Korea. In April and May 2011, seven artists went to the east coast port of Wonsan for eight days. Three of the artists then visited the west seaport of Nampo for five days.

They stayed in small local hotels on the seafront, following the shipbuilders and the life of the port, sketching and photographing during the day and eating fresh fish and drinking soju (rice wine) in the evening.

Ship Building Missing Artworks

The full body of forty works had taken a year to set up and was just weeks away from completion (inks, oils, linocuts) but because of an internal problem (which has to remain unrevealed at the present time), the project was cancelled. This was reminiscent of a previous commission that sadly also went under).

The only works from this project we managed to get out were the Hwang In Jae linocuts. To rub salt into the wounds of this failed effort, around six years later, we were offered in Beijing some of the artworks which I had not seen since walking around the studio with the artists in 2011!

Not only had we lost a large sum of money for the commission, but we were now being asked to pay for the work again.

Needless to say, we refused… But it still torments us. The works that were produced were remarkable and may never be seen again. Ultimately, we could not track down the work and it was all hushed up.

The exhibition we had worked on for two years would never take place.

About the Artist:
Hwang In Jae (1943-2015)

Hwang was born in Changchun, China (in 1943 this area, as well as all of Korea, were under Japanese occupation).

He studied in Pyongyang and graduated from the University of Fine Arts in 1968. Then, he moved to the major art studio in Pyongyang in the late 1970s and was honoured with various prizes and the title of People’s Artist (the highest award).

We had the honour of working with Hwang in the last decade of his life. Indeed, he was a wonderfully talented artist and a great personality. His works are extremely collectable (we have several older pieces in our collection) and we were fortunate not only to be the only foreigners to commission him directly but also to receive two other bodies of work ‘Heroines and Villains’, ‘and Women at Work’.

’A number of his works are in the collection of the British Museum and ‘The Fairy of the Kumgang Mountains’ (2009) is in the Queensland Art Gallery collection (commission by Koryo Studio for the Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art).

You can also find his works in our Phaidon’s publication ‘Printed in North Korea’.