李 賢晙

<p> Choi Seung-hee (1911-1969) was a Korean dancer who studied under Japanese contemporary dancer Ishii Baku, and performed in Korea, China, Europe, and America as well as in Japan from 1926. Many Japanese painters, especially those of the 1940s, produced Choi Seung-hee's dancing images.</p><p> This paper examines the paintings and drawings of Choi Seung-hee's dancing in their proper historical context and attemps to clarify their creative processes.</p><p> First, the works by Arishima Ikuma and by Yasui Sotaro, two artists who produced Choi Seung-hee's paintings upon her request, are analyzed. Choi Seung-hee managed to present the images of "Japan" and "Korea", and then "East" and "Korea" juxtaposed in her pictures.</p><p> Second, the sketches by Kaburagi Kiyokata which evoked the image of "Korea" of the 1940s, as well as the statues and painting by Ishii Tsuruzou, are analyzed. Through the analyses of their productions, I have shown how the painters attempted to appropriate Choi Seung-hee as a subject of the Japanese empire.</p><p> This paper examines how art works are produced under political pressure by examining Choi Seung-hee's pictures and statues. It shows that such a "political" rendition promoted Choi Seung-hee's popularity by providing the painters with a new subject during the war period, a time when there were considerable restrictions on the freedom of artistic expressions.</p>