Bae Bien-u (born May 22, 1950) is a South Korean photographer. He is a professor in

Seoul Institute of the Arts Seoul Institute of the Arts is a prominent educational institution specializing in the Arts located in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The school has nurtured many graduates who are actively working in art related fields within Korea as w ...

Early life and career

Bae was born in

Suncheon Suncheon () (''Suncheon-si'') is a city in South Jeolla Province, South Korea. It is a scenic agricultural and industrial city of around 250,000 people near Suncheon Bay. It is located in the southeastern corner of Jeollanam-do, just over an hour ...

and grew up in

Yeosu Yeosu (; ''Yeosu-si''), historically also Yosu, and known to the Japanese as Reisui during the period when Korea was under Japanese rule, is a city located on the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula in South Jeolla Province, South Korea and ...

Jeollanam-do South Jeolla Province (; ''Jeollanam-do''; ), also known as Jeonnam, is a province of South Korea. South Jeolla has a population of 1,902,324 (2014) and has a geographic area of located in the Honam region at the southwestern tip of the Korean ...

in 1950, and graduated from

Hongik University Hongik University (, colloquially ''Hongdae'') is a private university in Seoul, South Korea. Founded by an activist in 1946, the university is located in Mapo-gu district of central Seoul, South Korea with a second campus(branch campus) in S ...

's College of Arts in 1974 and the graduate school of the same university in 1976. Renowned as a professional photographer with themes especially concentrated on pine trees, he has become a representative photographer with the reputation of capturing the characteristic sentiments of Korea including the pine trees, oceans and mountains with his camera rather than a brush. He became better-known outside of South Korea after selling one of his pine tree photographs to English singer

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

in 2005. Former South Korean president

Lee Myung-bak Lee Myung-bak (; ; ; born 19 December 1941) is a South Korean businessman and politician who served as the 10th president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013. Before his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, and the ma ...

later gave a collection of Bae's pine tree photographs to U.S. president

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

during a summit held in Washington. He served as professor of the Department of Photography at

Selected solo exhibitions

Some of his solo exhibitions are listed below: * 2008: ''Sacred Wood'', BOZAR -

Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles The Centre for Fine Arts (french: Palais des Beaux-Arts, nl, Paleis voor Schone Kunsten) is a multi-purpose cultural venue in Brussels, Belgium. It is often referred to as BOZAR (a homophone of ''Beaux-arts'') in French or PSK in Dutch. The b ...

, Brussels * 2009: ''Sacred Wood'', Aando Fine Art, Berlin * 2009: ''Sacred Wood'', Galerie zur Stockeregg, Zurich * 2009: ''Soul Garden'',

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) is a contemporary art museum with four branches in Gwacheon, Deoksugung, Seoul and Cheongju. The museum was first established in 1969 as the only national art museum in the country ...

Korea - Deoksugung, Seoul * 2011: ''ConvexConcave'', Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerpen * 2012: ''Windscape'', Aando Fine Art, Berlin * 2012: ''Windscape'',

Christophe Guye Galerie Christophe may refer to: People * Christophe (given name), list of people with this name * Christophe (singer) (1945–2020), French singer * Cristophe (hairstylist) (born 1958), Belgian hairstylist * Georges Colomb (1856–1945), French comic str ...

, Zurich * 2014: ''Counterbalance'', Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp * 2015: ''Dans un forêt l’autre'',

Château de Chambord The Château de Chambord () in Chambord, Centre-Val de Loire, France, is one of the most recognisable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with cla ...

, Domain national de Chambord * 2016: ''Bae Bien-U -分合 Part:Meet'', Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong * 2016: ''Bae Bien-U - L'Esprit du Lieu'', Musée de la Mer, CannesBae Bien-U - L'Esprit du Lieu
officiel-galeries-musees.com

Collections of photographs

* ''To live in a thickly forested mountain'' (청산에 살어리랏다), 2005, * ''Changdeokgung'' (창덕궁), 2009,

References

External links

Korea Digital Archives for the Arts "Bae Bien-U (배병우)"

"Bae Bien-u Exhibit"
Naver {{DEFAULTSORT:Bae, Bien-u 1950 births Living people People from Yeosu Hongik University alumni Academic staff of Seoul Institute of the Arts South Korean photographers