I’ve been thinking
of the amazing life of Johsel Namkung, one of the Northwest’s true renaissance
men, but who is best known before he died, at 94, last July, as one of the world’s great nature
photographers.
Washington
state lost many talented citizens in 2013, but Johsel remains top of mind. He was was born in the Japanese colony of Korea
in 1919 and grew up in a world where he and his family were always at risk as
war and destruction closed in on them while they navigated Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, and Pyongyang in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
He not only
survived those amazing times, he thrived in them. Among the reasons why is that people could
see beyond his modest presentation to where a resilient and seriously talented person
existed who pursued his love of music and art even as the world he inhabited was
collapsing around him. He was the Korean
proverb:
“If you
speak beautiful words, then people will speak beautiful words to you.”
As a young
Korean boy, he grew up in an international culture in Korea, then a Japanese colony. His father had earned a
Doctor of Divinity from Princeton and Johsel grew up in an atmosphere of largely
western learning, rare for a Korean boy at the time. He became interested in German lieder, a form
of musical expression that combines classical music from some of the great
musicians in the
German culture with top notch German poetry. His voice turned as a young man into a rich bass and his interpretations of lieder were considered exceptional both in Korea and in Tokyo, where he won a great prize at Tokyo’s top music conservatory and met his Japanese wife, Mineko, an even greater prize, at a Tokyo opera company.
German culture with top notch German poetry. His voice turned as a young man into a rich bass and his interpretations of lieder were considered exceptional both in Korea and in Tokyo, where he won a great prize at Tokyo’s top music conservatory and met his Japanese wife, Mineko, an even greater prize, at a Tokyo opera company.
As Japanese
nationalism grew more strident in Korea, and as the Japanese invaded Manchuria
and set up the colony they called Manchukuo, the Japanese military took several measures to bring their colony closer to heel. People were forced to adopt Japanese names,
teaching Korean was banned, Koreans were drafted into the Japanese Army, Comfort Women were forced into sexual slavery, Christians
were forced to worship in the Shinto tradition, the official religion of
Japan.
Though
Koreans carried Japanese passports, they were considered racially inferior to
the Japanese and were second class at best.
Johsel’s father, Hyuk Namkung, was the patriarch of a large, influential
and talented family and one that was not doing as it was being told to do. He
resisted, feared that he would go to jail, and in 1939 sold everything and
moved his clan to Shanghai, a place where wartime refugees were mostly welcome. Joshel would join his father in Shanghai after
finishing music school in Japan and the Japanese woman he met there, would
follow and marry him in June of 1941. It was a marriage that pleased no one. Her family saw her marrying a forever poor artist. One of Johsel's aunts was severely tortured by the Japanese. However, they thrived in the great international
and cosmopolitan city and would overcome the objections. They opened a
music school, helped revive the Shanghai Symphony, one of the world’s best at
the time, even as the Japanese closed in on the city. Once he got to the US and found a life here,
he nearly lost it to the great Red Scare in the mid-fifties, facing deportation
and likely execution in South Korea.
Through it
all, he and Mineko grew their family in Shanghai, Seoul and Seattle, became
pals with nearly every famous painter and sculptor in the Northwest School of
the fifties and sixties. He developed
great technical and poetical skills as the photographer who spurned the heroic
images of the great mountains and waters for images that capture a tiny, clear
stream, the physics of the stream flow revealed through a slight folding of a strip of scum on top, it all flecked with pollen from the surrounding Douglas Firs.
His art, of
course, survives him. But so do the
experiences of his life. I want to write
about what happened before he found his photography and what it was like to
live in such dangerous and exhilarating times. That he emerged from them with the
earnest optimism he had, that he developed his considerable talents throughout,
is an achievement as inspirational as his pictures.
Let’s start
in Korea. After years of maneuvering by
the Japanese, Korea had become a colony of Japan by 1910 and remained so until
the Japanese surrender in 1945. While a
colony, the treatment of Koreans varied, though it was frequently brutal. By 1920, the Korean royal family had all been
assassinated and the Japanese displayed a somewhat lighter hand. However, as the Japanese military gained greater
control of the government and set their country on a war footing, first with
the invasion of Manchuria in the fall of 1931, the treatment of Koreans became
harsher.
Namkung’s
father was the leader of the most prominent Christian community in Korea and they lived
in a compound with people from all over the world. Johsel thrived in that bubble. An older brother was a role model who seemed
to do anything he chose with ease – painting, poetry, music, languages, science. He followed his lead, worked hard to make
things seem easy. His aptitude for science paled when compared
to his vocal skills and it disappointed him considerably. He heard records on 78 rpm record players of
the day and fell in love with the scratchy German lieder he heard on them sung
by the great German singers. He focused on art and music and he became exposed
to many different kinds of musical expression though his love of German music was
by far the most robust. The family moved
to Pyongyang when his father was appointed to a professorship at the Christian
college there.
A teenager,
he competed in Korea’s national music contest in Pyongyang and emerged the
winner. It was enough to convince his father
that he would be a better candidate as a music student than as a minister. At 17, he traveled to Japan and entered the
premier music school in Tokyo. On his
second try, he won the national voice competition in Japan. He was later invited to join one of Japan’s
opera companies and continue his studies there.
He met his Japanese wife, Mineko, at this opera company in
1938.
As the
concessions grew in size and influence, they took on the look and feel of the
western countries operating there. A
county-like government, the Shanghai Municipal Council, provided governance for
the British and American sectors while the French, sector governed alone.
The nightlife of Shanghai was famously sinful. The gambling life was equally rich. They even combined the two. The Canidrome Ballroom was both a hot night club and a greyhound dog track, combining the words canine and racetrack. Some nightclubs, like the three story art deco Paramount, survive today.
The nightlife of Shanghai was famously sinful. The gambling life was equally rich. They even combined the two. The Canidrome Ballroom was both a hot night club and a greyhound dog track, combining the words canine and racetrack. Some nightclubs, like the three story art deco Paramount, survive today.
The
International Concession also had one of the great orchestras of the world,
beginning its musical life in 1879 as the Shanghai Municipal Public Band. For many years, the orchestra did not allow
Chinese to hear its performances, but a sensualist Italian gambler/musician,
Mario Paci, came on the scene in 1919 and soon was exhibiting a world class
sound. He made sure that Chinese could
not only enjoy the orchestra but play in it and this attracted some great
Chinese musicians.
Mario Paci |
Wolfgang Fraenkel German Composer |
Shanghai Train Station, 1937 Associated Press H.S. Wong |
The
invasion caused a great deal of trouble for the orchestra, but a Japanese intelligence
officer with an interest in German music soon put together a group to reopen
the orchestra as well as a Russian Ballet Company. Johsel took over programming for the
performances and even learned to conduct.
They continued to run the music school they had set up when they
arrived.
By 1944,
the Namkungs had a baby girl, Irene, and it was becoming clear that Shanghai
would be chaos when the Japanese left and especially dangerous for a Japanese
woman and her young daughter. In
November, they caught what likely was the last Japanese passenger vessel
leaving Shanghai for Japan. Just before leaving, a
woman who helped Johsel with his conversational German gave the couple a large
packet of Cream of Wheat, just in case there were problems with their journey, then just an overnight trip.
Kobe in 1945 |
They made
their way to Nara, a cultural heritage site not on the allied bombing list, but could not find housing. As the constant
bombing closed in on them, they found a boat going to Korea and bought tickets,
even though there was a risk for a Japanese woman in post-occupation Korea. The end of World War II found them in Seoul
living with Johsel’s sister, a pianist, and his parents.
The country
had been divided into a Russian sector in the north, above the 38th
Parallel, with its administrative capital in Pyongyang and the American Sector
in the South.
His music,
voice and language skills propelled him along.
He soon found his way to the church choir and stood out as special. He was asked to be a personal interpreter by
an American Major from Seattle who had gone to Seattle Pacific University. A former Army Chaplain in Korea had been
appointed the President of the University of Seoul immediately after the
war. Before the war, he was the Dean of the Commerce Department at Seattle Pacific University. After
hearing Johsel sing at church one day, he and the Major knew that Johsel needed
to study music at Seattle Pacific and the sooner the better.
Assured of
a scholarships in Seattle, Johsel and Maneko each received student visas and
enrolled at Seattle Pacific. They found
the music department well-below the quality they were used to in Japan,
Shanghai and Korea.
In Seattle,
Johsel quickly began performing and drew the attention of the University of
Washington music department as well as its language department, then in need of
someone with Japanese conversation skills.
After he joined the University of Washington faculty, he was in a position to change his immigration status
which would allow him to bring his two children – another had been born in
Seoul after they had left Shanghai – to America. Before leaving, a Korean Methodist Minister
Namkung knew asked him to deliver a letter ‘as a friend.’ The letter was to Kim Il Song, the leader of
North Korea and Johsel was supposed to give it to a physician in the South
Korean Public Health Service.
Namkung
knew the minister was a North Korean sympathizer and took the risk because, at
the time, conventional wisdom had it that the North was better prepared
militarily and would dominate the South if it came to war. He hoped carrying the letter would position
him to help his father, the most prominent Christian in South Korea, in the
event the North prevailed.
He
traveled to Seoul a few months before the war broke out, picking up his
children, receiving a different visa, delivering the note and spending time
with his father. He returned with his
kids in the Fall of 1948. Certainly he
and his father talked about personal safety and the fear of war on the
peninsula. His father was poorly
positioned in Seoul. Not only was he at
risk from the North, but in the South.
He was a political enemy of the dictator Syngman Rhee, the autocratic
leader who emerged as the postwar leader in the South.
South Korean Refugees Fleeing in 1950 |
And
Johsel’s fears about his father were also accurate. He and the husband of his sister were detained
by the North Koreans in the Fall of 1950 after they had captured Seoul. They disappeared into the violent history of
Korea, likely taken North, tortured and killed with other religious
leaders.
The message
Johsel delivered also came back to threaten him and his family. The US and South
Koreans sifted through North Korean papers when they occupied Pyongyang in
1951. There, they found the letter sent
to Kim Il Sung by the minister in Seattle with Johsel’s name identified as the
courier. The letter is a
relatively clueless view of American politics, but sufficient for the Immigration and Naturalization Service to
issue a deportation order for Johsel on a Tuesday effective the following
Friday.
He found a
great attorney, Ken MacDonald, who represented him for seven years as he
appealed the deportation. McDonald made
the point that it was a death sentence for Namkung to return to South
Korea. Two of his brothers had become
communists in the twenties, though he and two other brothers had not. People who were not compliant under the Rhee
government did not fare well. Recent
disclosures from a South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission show that Rhee’s
government had murdered thousands of people suspected as being opponents to his government, communists, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A private bill, sponsored by the state
congressional delegation, ended Johsel’s seven year nightmare in 1961.
Johsel decided
he could not be a professional singer because singing at his level required constant practice and he had a family to support. There was precious little money singing
German lieder in America.
So, he began to drift into his photography as his creative outlet and worked as a photographic printer, improving his eye for color. He also found work as electron microscope photographer at the University of Washington Medical School. A Japanese businessman sent him $500 out of the blue, asking him to buy the camera gear he needed. He and his wife opened a gallery
and were soon friends with other young artists in Seattle who would later
become famous.
All the while, he roamed the Northwest and Alaska, finding his unique scenes and waiting for the perfect light. His prints began to sell. He was asked to illustrate a book about the Olympic Rain Forest and it sold well. He was on his way.
From left to right, Paul Horiuchi, George Tsutakawa, gallery owner Zoe Dussane, John Matsudairia and Kenjiro Nomura Elmer Ogawa Photo |
All the while, he roamed the Northwest and Alaska, finding his unique scenes and waiting for the perfect light. His prints began to sell. He was asked to illustrate a book about the Olympic Rain Forest and it sold well. He was on his way.
He and Mineko, also called Helen, created a unique space in the world of Seattle Art in the late 1950s and early
sixties. Through Tsutakawa, a
professor at the UW School of Art, he met many artists in and out of the
university. Soon, Mineko and Johsel were
having dinners and parties at their house with Mark Toby, Paul Horiuchi, Guy Anderson, Ken Callahan -- icons of Northwest School today, then just becoming known.
Tobey, who was also an excellent musician, would sometimes play the piano and Johsel would sing his German songs, the others sketching away and laughing. There was a camping trip to Shi Shi Beach on the Olympic Peninsula that ended with an art show attended by no one but these artists -- sticks, rocks, seagrasses, driftwood, bits of broken glass rubbed cloudy by the Pacific Ocean -- arranged on the beach, surviving at most a day or two.
Reading through the list of people and institutions who own Namkung's work, I came across the words "Japanese Royal Household" and suddenly remembered a woman in a bright yellow dress, glowing with a Seattle Spring day in a large suite at the Westin, Mineko bowing, me giving my welcoming remarks on behalf of the city and Johsel unwrapping the gift of one of his pictures. I can't remember the name of the royal personage, just that she sure looked royal. Nor can I remember the picture Johsel gave her, just the glow of the dress in the big room.
After, at a nice lunch, we talked about a couple of things I've described above, but mostly about how glorious it was to meet a real princess wearing such a lovely yellow dress, a color not found in nature.
Namkung's Photography
Smithsonian Institution Oral History
Wolfgang Fraenkel's Journey to Shanghai
Mark Tobey Robert Bruce Inverarity |
Tobey, who was also an excellent musician, would sometimes play the piano and Johsel would sing his German songs, the others sketching away and laughing. There was a camping trip to Shi Shi Beach on the Olympic Peninsula that ended with an art show attended by no one but these artists -- sticks, rocks, seagrasses, driftwood, bits of broken glass rubbed cloudy by the Pacific Ocean -- arranged on the beach, surviving at most a day or two.
Reading through the list of people and institutions who own Namkung's work, I came across the words "Japanese Royal Household" and suddenly remembered a woman in a bright yellow dress, glowing with a Seattle Spring day in a large suite at the Westin, Mineko bowing, me giving my welcoming remarks on behalf of the city and Johsel unwrapping the gift of one of his pictures. I can't remember the name of the royal personage, just that she sure looked royal. Nor can I remember the picture Johsel gave her, just the glow of the dress in the big room.
After, at a nice lunch, we talked about a couple of things I've described above, but mostly about how glorious it was to meet a real princess wearing such a lovely yellow dress, a color not found in nature.
Namkung's Photography
Smithsonian Institution Oral History
Wolfgang Fraenkel's Journey to Shanghai