Jin Hwan

Ken Tin, whose Korean name was Jin Hwan (born as Jin Gi Yong), was one of the western style watercolorists of the then Japanese colony. He came from Gochang County in South Korea’s North Jeolla province, where he also visited high school. Although he was admitted to attend the College in 1931, he soon dropped out and started to study art at the Boseong University. Three years later, he went first to Guangzhou (Canton) and then to Japan and continued his studies. In 1936, he won the award for the most promising artist and participated in various exhibitions in Tokyo including the New Korean Artists Association Exhibition and the Tokyo Art Exhibition. In 1940 he completed his studies at the Tokyo Fine Arts School and was appointed as an instructor. After his return to Korea in 1943 and the liberation in 1945, he joined a group of artists called Chosun Art Construction Headquarter and worked additionally as a school headmaster. 1948 he became a professor at the Hongik University in Seoul. Three years later, during the Korean War, he was killed by a grenade that hit his hometown. He was particularly famous for painting cows as a symbol for Korea during the colonial time. Other motifs were trees in blossom, fish, peach trees, birds and children as symbols of innocent nature.

Tin’s paintings showing basketball motifs were originally just called Group (Gunzō), sometimes Group B. He painted them shortly after he came to Japan.