Kim Tschang-Yeul

Kim Tschang-Yeul (1929-2021) is renowned worldwide as "the water drop painter," having studied at Seoul National University's College of Fine Arts and the Art Students League of New York before settling in Paris. Emerging from the Art Informel movement of the 1950s-60s, he developed his signature Water Drops series from 1972 onward, later layering droplets over Thousand Character Classic (Cheonjamun) texts to fuse Buddhist and Taoist philosophy with painterly illusion. His work is held by major institutions including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, the Centre Pompidou, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and he received France's Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2017) and Korea's Silver Crown Order of Cultural Merit (2012).