KIM HAS LEFT LASTING IMPACT AT ILLINOIS STATE

KIM HAS LEFT LASTING IMPACT AT ILLINOIS STATE

By Tom Emery

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the many accomplishments of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islander Americans in United States history and culture.

Many of Asian and Pacific Islander descent have attended Illinois State University, including Wonsook Kim, who earned a B.F.A. of Fine Arts in Ceramics in 1975. It was the first step in an internationally renowned career in the arts for Kim, whose talent has taken her around the globe.

Among a myriad of career highlights, Kim was named the Artist of the Year in 1995 by the United Nations. As of 2019, her work had been featured in 64 solo exhibitions worldwide.

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A native of South Korea, Kim was born in Pusan on March 27, 1953. Her birth was four months, to the day, before the end of hostilities in the Korean War.

The second of eight children, she was born into a family of classical musicians. In a 2014 interview, Kim laughed that her “parents were preoccupied with a lot of geniuses in my family.” One sibling is now a concert pianist in Italy, while another is a violinist for the Baltimore Symphony. Her father was a managing editor of a major Korean daily newspaper, while her mother was a skilled pianist.

Kim’s parents encouraged her to play the piano, but she preferred the world of art. Eventually, the she created a studio in the family basement, to study classical statues. Kim attended Hongik University, a foremost Korean art school, for a year, but found herself disappointed, and began looking to the United States to further her studies.

Knowing she needed fluency in English, Kim rose early most mornings to study for the TOEFL, and routinely listened to the American Forces Korean Network on radio.

Kim attended a summer session at the University of California-Berkeley, but decided to attend Illinois State, which offered the best scholarship, plus a stipend of $78 a month. Kim recalled that amount “was a small fortune at the time” to her.

In the 2014 interview, Kim credited ISU Professor Harold Boyd “for being the pivotal force that altered the direction of her art.” A campus source reports that “earlier fascinations with drawing the Korean folk stories told…by her grandmothers led to explorations in printmaking” which Boyd encouraged. Kim was also influenced by Harold Gregor and Ken Holder, two of her other Illinois State professors.

After earning her bachelor’s in 1975, Kim followed with a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from ISU. Her first American solo show, in 1976, was titled “Normal Experience” at the ISU Center of Fine Arts. That same year, she held her first solo exhibition of prints and drawings in South Korea, and moved to New York City.

Like many artists, Kim struggled to support herself, and worked a variety of occupations to keep her artistic dreams alive. Among others, she was employed by Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, Apartment Life Magazine, the catalog departments of Macy’s and Bloomingdales, and as a court interpreter.

Her perseverance paid off, and Kim’s career rose steadily into global acclaim. In 1990, her work was appearing in New York, Chicago, South Korea, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, and Brazil. She returned for a major exhibition at Illinois State with her old professor, Boyd, in 1993.

One of her many successful years was 2004, when she was featured in solo shows in Korea, Japan, Los Angeles, and New York. Kim also delivered the Commencement address at Illinois State that year. In 2010, she was inducted into the ISU College of Fine Arts Hall of Fame.

Kim is married to Thomas Clement, a pioneering inventor of medical devices who was adopted from a Korean orphanage after the Korean War. In 2015, the couple established the Woonsok Kim Scholarship Endowment at Illinois State.

In September 2019, Kim and her husband announced a $12 million gift to support the College of Fine Arts and the School of Art. Earlier that year, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Illinois State.

Tom Emery may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.

At her announcement event, Kim told the crowd that she hoped the College of Fine Arts that now bears her name “represents the opportunities I had, endless possibilities, allowing me to achieve higher goals than I ever dreamed. Thank you for being part of my dream.”