A previously unknown painting by early modern Korean artist Bae Un-seong was discovered by Czech Ambassador to South Korea Jaroslav Olsa Jr. after a yearlong search in the Czech Republic.

After an exhaustive search, the ambassador said that at least two paintings by Bae, considered a founding father of modern Korean art, had been located in the Czech Republic, including the previously unknown painting by the artist titled “Weltreise (Trip Around the World).”

The painting was found among a collection at the state-owned Hruby Rohozec Castle in the northern part of the Central European country. The work was unknown to South Korean art experts and had not been shown to the public since the 1930s, according to the Czech embassy.

Ambassador Olsa’s interest in Bae piqued two years ago after a chance discovery of a brief mention of one of his art exhibitions in a 1945 Czech article while Olsa was researching Czech-Korean relations.

Bae Un-seong (1900-1978) spent years of his life in Europe, studying at the Berlin National School of Fine Arts before settling in Paris, and is regarded as the first Korean to have studied art in Europe.

Bae traveled widely and held many solo exhibitions in such European countries as Germany, France, Austria and then-Czechoslovakia. In 1940, Bae returned to Korea and, after the country was divided into North and South, left Seoul for Pyongyang in 1948. War and national division kept knowledge of him to a minimum here.

In fact, his achievements as one of the founding fathers of modern Korean art went largely unappreciated until South Korea began its transition to democracy.

That appreciation got a boost when some 50 of his artworks were discovered in Paris in the 1990s, followed by a retrospective exhibition held at Deoksugung Palace museum in 2001.

By Philip Iglauer (ephilip2011@heraldcorp.com)