Lot 5302: Park Sookeun (1914-1965) On The Road Home (Gwi Ro), 1964

On The Road Home (Gwi Ro), 1964
Oil on board; depicting three women with their backs facing the viewer, the far left figure with a baby tied to her back and far right figure both carrying on their heads baskets with vertically striped sides while the figure to the center carries a sachel; the reverse signed in black crayon Park Sookeun in Hangul and English above the date 1964.
10 5/8 x 13 1/2in (27 x 34cm)

On the Road Home was purchased in Seoul, Korea in 1967 by the late Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Melford Rea of Portola Valley, California. Mr. Rea was the founder of Western Business Publications, specializing in information for the plastics industry and, beginning in 1957, Pacific Rim tourism. Pacific Travel News, Pacific Hotel Directory and Pacific Commerce were among his many publications. In 1967, While serving as Vice President-Publications for the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA), he and his wife attended a PATA conference in Seoul, where he purchased the painting.

Using simple arrangements of figures, Park Sookeun captured the quiet dignity of everyday life in the Korean countryside during the Korean Conflict. Figures similarly posed to this lot, painted in the same year, appear in a work entitled Han in (People walking) in the collection of of the Hongik University Museum (see Oh Kwangsoo and Yi Guyul, Park Soo-Keun 1914-1965 [Seoul, Chun Jaegook, 1995], catalogue section, p. 106, and illustrated in the unnumbered raisonné section, p. 116). The vertical format contains four women and two children arranged in two tiers: one woman in the upper tier carries a baby on her back as she walks next to her older child. The two women in the lower tier carry on their heads the same low basket with vertically striped sides, and one of them also has her feet pointing outward, as does the far left figure in this lot.

A second composition, practically identical to this lot, was illustrated as figure 8 in the Memorial Exhibition of the late Master Painter Park Soo Keun held in Seoul between October 6 through 10, 1965, at the painting gallery in the Jungang gongbo Building, Sojong dong. The catalogue lists it with the title Gwi ro (On the Road Home) in Hangul and the date 1964. However there are slight differences: the woman in the far left of the memorial exhibition painting has both feet turned slightly toward the right and the basket on her head almost touches the top margin. The far right figure in the memorial exhibition painting carries a full basket and her right arm is angled farther from her body than the figure in this lot.

On the Road Home is the third Park Sookeun painting to be offered by Bonhams & Butterfields: the first, Selling by the Roadside was sold in Sale 7584O, November 17, 2004, lot 134. The second, Roadside Vendor was sold in Sale 16095, June 23, 2008, lot 8330.