About

Almost a year has passed since the death of the artist Young-Il Ahn. Born in 1934 in Gaesong—a North Korean city near the demilitarized zone, then part of colonial Japan—Ahn endured his allotment of trauma, from political pressure and war, to his sister’s death from drowning in a stream as a child. He found his oasis in the arts. His father, a painter, and mother, a musician, eagerly shared their vocations with their son. Ahn’s first solo painting exhibition came at age six, in Tokyo. He won the First Korean National Art Exhibition at age 15, just months before the Korean War began.

Ahn took …