Varlen Pen

Pen Varlen (; ; September 29, 1916 – May 26, 1990) was a Soviet Russian-Korean painter and graphic artist.

He was a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists, lived and worked in Leningrad, regarded as a representative of the Leningrad school of painting, and most famous for his portrait paintings. Pen also spent 15 months as a Professor and Dean at the Pyongyang Fine Arts University in North Korea between 1953 and 1954. In 2016, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art held an exhibition in his name.

Early life Pen Varlen was born on September 29, 1916, into a Korean refugee settlement located in Shkotovsky, Primorski Krai (southeast Siberia). He completed his primary education in Shinhanchon (New Koreatown) located in Vladivostok. Afterwards, his parents sent him to study art in the Sverdlovsk Art School near the Ural Mountains in current day Yekaterinburg. In 1937, while Pen completed his studies in the Sverdlovsk Art School, his parents were forcefully relocated to Central Asia under Stalin's efforts to deport minority groups from within Russia. With his parents no longer there, Pen remained in the country and after graduating from the Sverdlovsk Art School, enrolled in the prestigious Ilya Repin Leningrad Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (established in 1764). He worked closely with his supervisor, Alexander Osmerkin, on the completion of his dissertation work titled "Fishermen in Choson" (1947), also known as "Korean Fishermen". However, shortly after Pen's graduation, Osmerkin became ostracized in the Soviet art scene due to his support of foreign, non-Soviet art. Nonetheless, Pen's work remained prominent both in the Iliya Repin Leningrad Academy of Painting, and the wider Soviet art scene. In 1951, a few years after his return to Russia, Pen earned his doctorate degree and began working as a professor of the Drawing Department at the Ilya Repin Leningrad Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He spent 35 years as an educator at the Academy. Additionally, Pen became a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists. This included the Pyongyang Art Academy, also known as the Pyongyang College of Arts. Pen, who was fluent in Korean, was sent to help restore the Pyongyang College of Arts with the expectation of integrating Soviet education and policy into the North Korean art scene. Pen often took his students on field trips to various locations throughout Pyongyang in order to encourage them to draw realistic subject matter as part of their 'field sketching' training. Pen also used this training method as a means to eradicate Formalism in the North Korean art scene, which he believed stemmed from the previous Japanese Colonial rule. Moon first learned about Pen during a trip he took to Russia in 1994, where he came across one of the paintings of the Russian-Korean artist hung up on a wall. He immediately recognized the inherent connection to Korean culture in Pen's painting and began his research into the artist's life.

Many of Pen's artworks continue to be displayed in Russian institutions and buildings, while the location of others remain a mystery.