May 16 was the 35th anniversary of the naming of Korean posokhwa (jewel painting).

Sin Pong Hwa is a People’s Artist, PhD and an authority in the creation of posokhwa. He carved out his glittering career along with the creation of Korean jewel painting.

Pioneer of Korean jewel painting

After graduating from the Korean painting faculty of Pyongyang University of Fine Arts, Sin Pong Hwa began his painting career at the Mansudae Art Studio in September 1980.

In the spring of 1984 when he was conducting his creative activity at the Sangwon Cement Complex for a field study, he happened to see a coating material made by the technicians and workers there with stone powder. The moment he saw the stone powder glittering in the sunlight an idea of drawing picture with the powder in various colours flashed through his mind.

In the course of intensifying the study on the painting with coloured stone powder, he created several pieces of pictures.

On his visit to the Sangwon Cement Complex Chairman Kim Jong Il saw the pictures and highly appreciated them, saying that the texture was really good, that there had never been such a picture drawn with stone powder in the world and that Sin did a really commendable thing.

Afterwards, in consideration of the unique quality of the material and features of the new genre of painting, the Chairman saw to it that it was named Korean posokhwa and took a measure to set up a Korean jewel painting production unit in the Mansudae Art Studio.

Thirty years as first head of production unit

Sin Pong Hwa worked as the first head of the Korean Jewel Painting Production Unit for 30 years.

“Korean jewel painting does not change for a long time and landscape, figure and all other objects can be depicted with the painting. Its beautiful and exquisite representation exudes unique affective charm by dint of a good blend of vivid and soft colours, three-dimensional shape and texture and decorative effects produced by the mixture of a variety of materials,” said the master artist.

His masterpieces are “Pigeon Dance”, “Snow Falls”, “Wisteria Flowers and Puppies” and “The Sobaek Stream in Winter”.

“Pigeon Dance” fills viewers with admiration, as it depicts the graceful figure of a female dancer, attired lightly to represent a white pigeon and dancing like a flying bird.

At the international exhibition of stone and stone processing techniques held in Kielce of Poland in April 2003, the general chief director of an international fair of the city visited the Korean jewel painting booth and said: The jewel painting of the DPRK is a wonderful art which attained the acme of beauty. It’s very nice to hear that it does not discolour forever. I highly appreciate the outstanding creative achievements made by the Korean jewel painting.

A special prize and medal were awarded to “Pigeon Dance” at the show.

Sin created well over a hundred pieces of works as he worked as the unit’s chief and scores of them were registered as the state’s possessions.

He also led the delegations to conduct external activities in dozens of countries including Germany, Russia and Poland, thus contributing to widely disseminating the successes achieved by the fine art of the DPRK.

He obtained a patent for the method of executing Korean jewel painting based on permanent materials and wrote “Korean jewel painting” and other papers and several books, making a great contribution to the development of posokhwa.

Even after retirement, he often goes to the production unit to teach young artists the knacks of creation and give them practical advice. He is also invited to Pyongyang University of Fine Arts to give lectures on jewel painting.

He keeps producing works at home and presents excellent works at annual national art exhibitions.

He presented Korean jewel painting “Increasing ‘New Family Members’” to the fine art exhibition for aged artists held last April in celebration of the 113th anniversary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung, thus showing off his ability as an authority.

“Things that are abundant and the life that is trampled underfoot and abandoned are often likened to stone. But with the birth of Korean jewel painting all stones of our country came to become valuable like jewels, and along with those precious stones my life came to sparkle like jewels," said Sin Pong Hwa.