Na Hye-sok

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As a young woman, Na Hyeseok was known for her high spirits and outspokenness, making it clear she wanted to be a painter and an intellectual, rejecting the traditional "Good Wife, Wise Mother" archetype. Her major written work, Kyonghui (Korean: 경희), published in 1918, concerns a woman's self-discovery and her subsequent search for meaning in life as a "new woman;" it is the first feminist short story in Korean literature.

After her graduation from Jinmyeong Girls' High School in 1913, Na Hyeseok majored in Western oil painting at Tokyo Arts College. As a student, Na wrote several essays critiquing the standard "good wife, good mother" Korean archetype, saying she wanted a career as an artist. In April 1915, Na became the main organizer of the Association of Korean Women Students in Japan. It was around this time that she fell in love with Choe Sung-gu, a student at Keio University and the then editor and publisher of the magazine Hakchigwang. The relationship between Na and Choe was highly publicized among Korean students in Japan, as was Na's close literary and personal association with Yi Gwangsu. In the spring of 1915, Na's father summoned her back home and pressured her to accept a marriage proposal from a well-established family. Na was able to escape this by accepting a teaching position in a primary school, according to her later account. After a year of teaching and saving money for tuition, Na returned to Tokyo toward the end of 1915 to resume her studies. In April 1916, however, Choe Sung-gu died of tuberculosis, and Na had to temporarily stop her studies while recovering from a mental breakdown.

In 1919, she participated in the March 1st Movement against Japanese rule. She was jailed for this, and the lawyer hired by her family to represent her soon became her husband.

In 1920 Na Hyeseok, along with Kim Iryeop and ten men, established the literary magazine P-yeho. Early in the 1920s, both Kim and Na contributed a series of articles to the first magazine for Korean women, called Sinyoja, or "New Woman", on the subject of improving Korean women's clothing. They argued for a more functional and practical outfit for Korean women to help improve their hygiene, health, and self-image, and denounced traditional Korean dresses which were designed with no consideration for women's physical comfort, protection, and convenience.

On April 10, 1920, Na Hyeseok married Kim Woo-young, in Jeongdong wedding hall, Seoul. Theirs was a love marriage, rare at the time in Korea. On 18 March 1921, Na had her first exhibition of paintings and the first exhibition by a Korean woman painter ever in Seoul. In 1923, Na attracted much attention for her essay "Thoughts on becoming a mother," in which she lashed out against her husband for leaving child-rearing entirely up to her.

In 1927 Na Hyeseok and her husband went on a three-year tour of Europe sponsored by the Japanese government, making her the first Korean woman to travel to Europe and America. While traveling around Europe, Na created paintings from her observances of European culture by carefully examining customs, arts, and family life, as well as exploring how women portrayed themselves. Following her return from abroad, Na continued to curate her art, holding an exhibition in her home town of Suwon in which she displayed both the art that completed in Europe as well as prints she had acquired throughout her travels.

Na studied painting in France while Kim had become a Japanese diplomat. While in Paris, with her husband away, she is said to have engaged in an affair with Cheondo-gyo leader Choi Rin, which became fodder for gossip columnists. Na Hyeseok's husband divorced her on grounds of infidelity in 1931. It is not known whether she truly was unfaithful; her diary shows that up to her late 30s she tried hard to remain loyal to traditional Korean marital and maternal roles in spite of the many humiliations and frustrations of her unhappy marriage. In any case, she came to be thought of and stigmatized as a woman who used her artistic pretensions as an excuse for sexual abandon. In 1931 Na sued Choi in a French court for "defamation of a woman's reputation" after he published a salacious article recounting their affair.

Despite the divorce and disgraceful reputation, Na Hyeseok continued painting and won a special prize at the 10th Joseon Art Exhibition in 1931. She also published a piece called A Divorce Testimony in the magazine Samcheolli in 1934, raising issues with gender inequality endorsed by Korean morality and tradition. She challenged the patriarchal social system and male-oriented mentality of Korean society at the time. In A Divorce Testimony, Na criticized the repression of female sexuality; stated that her ex-husband had been unable to satisfy her sexually and refused to discuss the issue; and finally she advocated "test marriages" where a couple would live together before marrying to avoid a repeat of her unhappy marriage. It wasA Divorce Testimony that ultimately ruined Na's career, as her views were regarded as scandalous and shocking, since traditional Korean Confucian culture considered premarital sex to be taboo and women were not to speak frankly of their sexuality. Unable to sell her paintings, essays, or stories, Na Hyeseok was reduced to destitution and spent her last years living on the charity of Buddhist monasteries. One consequence of this neglect has been that it is difficult today to verify what paintings are hers — although Na Hyeseok is now regarded as one of Korea's greatest painters, with her works selling for millions of won — and a number of fakes have appeared on the market.

She died on December 10, 1948 at a charity hospital. Having had no one to care for her in the later days, the location of her grave is still unknown. Her fate was often used to scold young Korean women who had literary or artistic ambitions; "Do you want to become another Na Hye-sok?" was a frequent reprimand to daughters and younger sisters. However, she has recently been acknowledged in Korea for her artistic and literary accomplishments. For example, Seoul Arts Center opened a retrospective exhibition of her works in 2000.

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