[News Figures] Painter and Former German Dispatch Nurse 'Late No Eun-nim'

'The late No Eun-nim' was a world-renowned artist and a former nurse who worked in Germany. She expressed primordial vitality through simple forms such as flowers and birds, and was active in Germany. She passed away last October at the age of 76 after battling cancer.

Born in 1946 in Jeonju, Jeonbuk, as the third daughter among nine siblings. She worked as a tuberculosis control officer at the township office in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, and after seeing a newspaper advertisement, she left for Hamburg, Germany in 1970 and worked at a municipal hospital near the Hamburg port.

In a foreign land where communication was difficult, she would only paint after work. One day, a head nurse who came to No Eun-nim’s house because she was absent due to a cold saw her paintings and held a small exhibition at the hospital. Through the introduction of Hans Tiemann, a professor at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and one of the visitors, she entered that university and graduated in 1979, then worked as a full-time artist.

President Yoon Suk-yeol is introducing the work of the late writer No Eun-nim, a former nurse dispatched to Germany, to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz before the Korea-Germany summit held at the Yongsan Presidential Office building in Seoul on the afternoon of the 21st.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

She was the first Korean woman to serve as a professor at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts for 20 years starting in 1990. Her works were included in French middle school literature textbooks, and in November 2019, a permanent exhibition room was established in Michelstadt, Hesse, Germany.

No Eun-nim devoted her life to the question of "what nature is composed of and how the forces that compose it operate," working with natural subjects such as fish, birds, and flowers. The German art scene was enthusiastic about her works, which, though seemingly simple and rustic like those drawn by a child with simple lines and primary colors, conveyed strong power and vitality.

No Eun-nim worked in various media including oil painting, black-and-white acrylic paintings on hanji paper, installation art, and stained glass. Her stained glass works can be found in St. Johannis Church in Altona, Hamburg, and Oak Valley Church in Gangwon, Korea. Introduced by video artist Nam June Paik, she held her first solo exhibition in Korea in 1982, and her last solo exhibition in Korea was held last August at the Gana Art Center.

At the summit meeting between President Yoon Suk-yeol and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held at the Yongsan Presidential Office on the 21st, the painting hanging on the wall while Chancellor Scholz signed the guestbook was No Eun-nim’s 1984 work, "Under a Corner of the Earth."