Lee Ungno (Korean, 1904–1989), Pine Tree, After Bada Shanren, 1976

Ink on paper, inscribed, signed, and dated at upper left, with two artist’s seals.

Image size: 69 1/2 × 37 7/8 inches (176.5 × 96.2 cm)

The inscription may be translated as:

“In 1976, in Paris. The Master of Xixintang, after Bada Shanren. Freely painted by Goam.”

The two seals read “Li” and “In Communion with Stone.”

Painted in Paris in 1976, this monumental Pine Tree brings together three essential dimensions of Lee Ungno’s art: his deep study of classical Chinese painting, his understanding of the archaic structures of seal and clerical scripts, and the gestural freedom he developed through his encounter with postwar European abstraction.

The inscription states that the composition was painted “after Bada Shanren,” the sobriquet of Zhu Da (1626–1705), one of the most original masters of early Qing painting. Lee’s model was Bada Shanren’s Solitary Pine, now in the collection of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum （https://www.sina.cn/news/detail/5332086472837879.html）. He preserves the earlier work’s essential structure—a solitary trunk rising vertically before extending dramatically across the upper register—but enlarges, accelerates, and radically transforms it.

At nearly six feet in height, Lee’s pine confronts the viewer as an immediate physical presence. The trunk is constructed from broad, forceful strokes applied with tremendous speed. Wet ink spreads into the absorbent paper, while dry-brush passages produce fractured, abrasive textures that expose the movement of the bristles. Dense blacks alternate with pale washes and untouched paper. The tree emerges through the physical actions of pressing, dragging, turning, striking, and lifting the brush.

The pine needles likewise transcend literal description. Some gather into concentrated masses of black ink, while others burst outward as rapid, pointed strokes. Individual needles resemble fragments of ancient script, and the larger branches possess the structural force of written characters. The pine therefore exists simultaneously as a natural image, a monumental calligraphic form, and an abstract field of energy.

This language reflects Lee’s sustained study of Chinese seal and clerical scripts. Their weighty, architectonic structures taught him that a brushstroke could function both as writing and as an independent visual form. Pine Tree consequently possesses a powerful jinshi, or “metal-and-stone,” quality associated with inscriptions cast in bronze or carved into stone. Its strokes are heavy, weathered, angular, and resistant to polished elegance, appearing at once spontaneous and ancient.

The seal reading “In Communion with Stone” offers a poetic key to the painting. Lee does not merely reproduce the outward appearance of a pine; he engages with the material and spiritual qualities of stone, inscription, bark, ink, and paper. The tree thus acquires the endurance and monumentality of an ancient stele.

Lee’s engagement with Chinese calligraphy and painting was neither superficial nor antiquarian. In 1973, three years before the present work, he co-authored Calligraphie, peinture chinoise et art abstrait (Calligraphy, Chinese Painting and Abstract Art) with the Swiss aesthetician Pierre Jaquillard. The publication reflects one of the central concerns of Lee’s mature practice: the relationship between the ancient brush traditions of East Asia and modern abstraction.

His understanding of these traditions was grounded in decades of practice and teaching. Initially trained in Korean literati painting, Lee later studied Japanese Nanga, nihonga, and Western art. After settling in Paris, he absorbed the energy of Art Informel without abandoning the discipline of the brush. In 1964, he co-founded the Academie de Peinture Orientale de Paris, where he taught East Asian calligraphy and ink painting to European students.

The work also belongs to a period shaped by extraordinary personal adversity. In 1967, Lee became embroiled in the East Berlin Affair, during which Korean expatriates and artists in Europe were accused of espionage for North Korea. He was returned to South Korea, convicted, and imprisoned for approximately two and a half years. Even in prison, he continued to work, producing more than three hundred pieces with whatever materials were available, including paper, rice paste, and soy sauce. Following sustained international and French diplomatic pressure, he was released in 1969 and returned to France.

Seen against this history, the solitary pine assumes particular resonance. In East Asian painting, the pine traditionally symbolizes endurance, integrity, and the capacity to survive severe conditions. Lee does not state that the painting is autobiographical, yet his choice to reinterpret Bada Shanren’s solitary pine after imprisonment and return to France inevitably deepens the work’s associations with resilience and independence.

By the 1970s, Lee had already developed his celebrated Abstract Letter paintings, in which written signs became autonomous pictorial structures. His return to a traditional subject in Pine Tree was therefore not a retreat from abstraction. The trunk functions as a massive vertical axis, the branches become sweeping calligraphic strokes, and the needles disperse into repeated marks and rhythmic clusters. The viewer moves continuously between the recognition of a tree, the perception of an enormous written character, and the experience of pure gestural energy.

The painting’s exceptional scale suggests the participation of the artist’s entire arm and body. Its execution becomes almost performative, yet the apparent spontaneity is supported by a deeply internalized knowledge of brush pressure, ink tonality, calligraphic structure, and compositional balance. The broad areas of untouched paper allow the massive form to breathe, giving the work both immense physical weight and a sense of continual movement.

Pine Tree is therefore not simply a modern copy of an earlier Chinese composition. It is a sophisticated act of historical interpretation. Lee transforms Bada Shanren’s concentrated brushwork into monumental gesture and converts the solitary tree into an abstract pictorial architecture. Korean literati training, Chinese calligraphy, Japanese Nanga, Parisian Art Informel, and modern abstraction converge within a single commanding image.

The work demonstrates that Lee Ungno’s modernity did not depend upon rejecting tradition. It arose from his ability to penetrate tradition so deeply that its structures could be released, enlarged, and made new. Executed with remarkable speed, physical force, and calligraphic intelligence, Pine Tree is a powerful synthesis of painting and writing, representation and abstraction, endurance and artistic freedom.

Provenance: Acquired from a distinguished collector in Silicon Valley. 来源：得自加州硅谷资深收藏家。

Painting is unframed, scattered brown spots along upper half (possibly foxing), split in center measuring approx 1 inch, small tear at bottom right corner with loss, creases from folds throughout. For condition report and additional photos, please contact the Asian Art Department.