Picasso's Korean War Paintings and Abstract Art of Korea and Japan, 1950s-1960s

During the critical time of the Korean War(l950-53), Picasso's Massacre in Korea and the War received international attention due to political engagement. At the peak of the Cold War, both capitalists and communists used Picasso's two paintings as political propaganda for their own interests. After the Korean War, these paintings by Picasso were erased from publications in South Korea and japan under the control of American power. American regime feared that Massacre in Korea portrayed an image of American violence against innocent Koreans, and the War dealt with the alleged germ warfare perpetrated by the U.S. military. This political manipulation was highly organized and effective cultural propaganda designed to legitimate the supremacy of democracy. Abstract-art movements in South Korea and Japan during the 1950s and 60s were imposed by this cultural propaganda. South Korean and Japanese artists believed that abstract art, such as Abstract Expressionism, represents the superiority of a free world's art over the social-realist art in the communist countries. Without realizing that the import of artistic style always accompanies ideological packages, South Korea and Japan developed abstract art as the mainstream of their modem art practice, thereby emulating the West. This paper will question the complex web of cultural and ideological factors leading to the development of modem art in South Korea and Japan during the 1950s-60s