Jinchul Kim Exhibits at UM for Korean American Centennial

SALISBURY, MD---In honor of the Korean American Centennial, the University of Maryland presents Portrait of You, the work of Jinchul Kim.  Kim is an artist and assistant professor of art at Salisbury University.  The exhibition will include approximately 20 of his latest drawings and paintings, which depict contemporary traditional still lifes and portraiture.

The Korean American Centennial commemorates the arrival of the first Korean immigrants to Honolulu, HI, in 1903. Events in the Centennial celebration include a two-part television documentary on the experiences of the earliest known Korean Americans.

Kim, a 1989 immigrant from South Korea, honors Korean American history with a commemorative portrait of Penn Su, who graduated from what was then the Maryland Agricultural College (later the University of Maryland) in 1891. An envoy from the king of Korea, he was the first Korean graduate of an American university. Though he died in a train accident a few months after graduation, he is remembered as the first representative of goodwill between Korea and the United States. 

Kim’s portrait of Penn Su is included in Portrait of You and will be displayed permanently in the Penn Su Conference Room of the Stamp Student Union when the exhibition is over.

Kim, who has shown his work all over the world, won first place at a self-portraits exhibition held in 2002 at the Maryland Federation of Art in Annapolis. Other awards include 1986 Artist of the Year for Art Journal in Seoul, Korea. He also received the Phyllis H. Mason Grant, awarded in 1995 by the Art Students League of New York.

The exhibition, located in the Union Gallery of the Stamp Student Union, begins with a reception at 5 p.m. Thursday, November 20, and ends Thursday, December 18. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday.

For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.