Rhee Ki-Bong

Rhee Ki-Bong was born in 1957. His exact birthplace and birth date are not documented in the sources reviewed for this profile; he is described in gallery and museum sources as living and working in Seoul, South Korea. He earned a BFA in Western Painting from Seoul National University in 1981 and an MFA in Painting from the same institution in 1985.

His early career included a first solo exhibition at Ingong Gallery in Seoul in 1981, followed by shows at Seoul galleries including Migun Gallery and Gallery Seo-hwa. In 1986 he won the Grand Prize at the National Art Exhibition of Korea, and in 1994 he received the Total Art Prize from the Total Museum of Contemporary Art. He has a long exhibition relationship with Kukje Gallery, which represents him in Seoul and Busan.

His practice, layering plexiglass and fabric over painted canvas to produce a dreamlike, fog-bound depth, has been described by Korean press as depicting nature veiled by impenetrable mist since the early 2000s. Tina Kim Gallery in New York represents him in the United States and has staged solo exhibitions there, and in 2022 Kukje Gallery mounted the large solo show Where You Stand across its Seoul and Busan spaces. In 2024 Tina Kim Gallery presented There is no place, a further solo exhibition of new work. Korean and international press continued to cover him as an active exhibiting artist through 2025 and 2026, with no source consulted indicating that he has died.

Rhee Ki-Bong's institutional standing rests on early recognition in Korea, most notably the 1986 Grand Prize at the National Art Exhibition of Korea and the 1994 Total Art Prize from the Total Museum of Contemporary Art. His work is held in the collections of major Korean institutions, including Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the Seoul Museum of Art, as well as international institutions such as Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Gallery and museum texts consistently describe his signature technique, layering plexiglass, fabric, and acrylic resin over canvas, as central to the hazy, elegiac quality of his landscapes. No exact, attributable critic quotation from a major outlet could be verified for reproduction here.

As of the data date above, no publicly reported, verified auction sale price could be confirmed for Rhee Ki-Bong. Researchers should also take care not to confuse his market with that of Seundja Rhee (1918 to 2009), an unrelated Korean abstract painter who shares the same surname romanization and has an active, well-documented auction record; several of that artist's sale results have been misattributed to "Rhee" in casual references. Until a verified auction result for Rhee Ki-Bong himself surfaces, his market should be treated as thin and largely undocumented at public sale.

Rhee Ki-Bong's profile is anchored in institutional and gallery activity rather than a developed secondary market: museum collections and gallery exhibition history are well documented, but no verified public auction result has been established for him as of this profile's data date. There is no catalogue raisonne, so authentication and provenance should be confirmed directly with his representing galleries, Tina Kim Gallery in New York and Kukje Gallery in Seoul and Busan. Collectors should also be careful with name matching, since "Rhee Ki-Bong," "Kibong Rhee," and the unrelated market figure Seundja Rhee are sometimes conflated in secondary sources due to the shared surname.