Kim En Joong
Biography
Kim En Joong was born in 1940 in South Korea. Coming from a family of eight children rooted in Taoist tradition, he moved to Taejon in 1946 at the age of six. It was there that he discovered color through printed materials left behind by the Japanese, who had just departed from Korea.
In 1950, the Korean War broke out. From 1947 to 1959, he pursued his studies in this city up to high school, during which time he also began practicing calligraphy. At the age of seventeen, he attended free drawing classes at his high school and prepared for the entrance exam to the Seoul School of Fine Arts, where he was admitted in 1959.
His higher education was disrupted by the unrest among fine arts students in 1960, as well as by the demanding preparation for military service, which took place at the school itself. He was mobilized in 1963 as an infantry lieutenant. Despite maintaining good relations with the soldiers, the war and the division of Korea into two parts caused him deep suffering. After returning from the front, he resumed painting, focusing primarily on nature as his main theme—birds, flowers, and so on. An American critic wrote about his work: “Kim has integrated the world of Miró and the materiality of Dubuffet.”
Released from military duties in 1965, he obtained a position as an assistant drawing teacher at a Catholic minor seminary in Seoul, where he discovered Catholicism. He was baptized in 1967.
Kim En Joong arrived in Europe in 1969. Initially a philosophy student in Switzerland, he entered the Dominican Order and completed his novitiate at the Dominican convent in Fribourg. He was encouraged in his Catholic faith and supported in his artistic talent by Fathers Pfister and Geiger, who advised him to go to Paris and facilitated his transfer so that he could continue his life of apostolate and work as a painter.
He was ordained a priest in 1974 and was assigned in 1975 to the Convent of the Annunciation at 222 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré in Paris, where he lives and works..
Exhibitions selected
2025 Kim En Joong, Couleurs de l'invisible, Chambord, France
2015 Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais, peintures, Beauvais, France
Galerie Chave «Lumière», peintures, livres illustrés, estampes, Vence, France
2014 Centre International du Vitrail : «Les peintres et le Vitrail (2000-2005)», Chartres, France
Festival d'Angers, Angers, France
2009 Centre International du Vitrail «Entre ciel et terre», Chartres, France
2007 Cathédrale d'Albi avec le Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi France
2006 Centre d'Art contemporain de l'Abbaye de Trizay, Trizay France
2003 Musée de Borda, Dax, France
Festival d'Angers, Angers, France
2002 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, États Unis
Les musées de Charlieu, Charlieu France
2001 Collège Saint Michel, Bruxelles, Belgium
2000 Taylor Galleries, Dublin, Irlande
Galerie Art-sélection, Zurich, Suisse.
1999 Le prieuré, Airaines, France.Le Château, Saint-Saturnin, France
Galerie Cazeau et de la Béraudière, Paris, France
1998 Galerie Kutter, Luxembourg.
Abbaye de Sylvanès, Camarès, France
1997 Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland.Taylor Galleries, Dublin, Ireland.
Musée d'Art Sacré, Évry, France.
1996 Yoshii Gallery, Tokyo, Japon
1994 Galleria Anna d'Ascanio, Rome, Italie
Cho Sun Ilbo Museum, Seoul, Corée du Sud
1992 Galerie Pudelko, Bonn, Germany.Galerie Fanny Guillon-Lafaille, Paris, France
Galerie Carinthia, Vienne, Autriche
1986 Galerie Kutter, Luxembourg.Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne, Switzerland
1983 Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris, France
1982 Galerie Alphonse Chave, Vence, France
1977 Galerie Jacques Benador, Genève, Switzerland
1973 Galerie Massol, Paris, France
1965 Sin Moon Hoekwan Gallery, Seoul, Corée du Sud
