The South Korean art world in 1953 was not unique in facing the onslaught of questions of identity, nation, and art practice raised by conflict and colonization. These issues and artistic approaches mirror similar developments throughout the globe during the middle part of the 20th century. As such, the development of South Korean modern painting can be understood as part of simultaneous processes occurring throughout East Asia, Latin America, and indeed, the United States and Europe in the mid part of the twentieth century. South Korea's political and social upheaval was a function not only of the competing interests and perceived rivalries between the South and North, but between Korea and Japan, and more broadly, the East and the West. For this reason, an examination of this formative period in modern Korean art and its intersection with global art movements is particularly instructive.

Through a series of case studies that link together a foundational exhibition of Korean artifacts, the 1957 show Masterpieces of Korean Arts , and the work of two important Korean artists of the period, Park Soo Keun and Kim Whanki, I argue this post-war discourse between the past and present was actively shaped by artists and museum curators who sought to define visions of a Korean past untainted by the travails of the twentieth century. This longing manifested itself in the search for origins, traditions, and archetypes of an enduring and unbroken Korean history located in the material remains of everyday life. The present shaped the past, but the past in return shaped the present. This dissertation examines the contingent, selective, and self-conscious use of the past in the development of South Korea's national museum and the modern arts in the post-colonial, post-civil war period following 1953.

(Note: the Appendix including the Figures is a separate, supplementary file.).