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201467 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.201467 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2025 59 pages Masters Thesis Academic theses en Joo, Ellen Brown, Claudia Cho, Sookja Codell, Julie Arizona State University Partial requirement for: M.A., Arizona State University, 2025 Field of study: Art History This thesis explores the artistic practice of Ch’oe Puk (1712-ca. 1786), a professional painter in eighteenth century Chosŏn (1392-1910) who sustained a living by selling his paintings to the general public. Through an investigation of political, cultural, and economic shifts in the late Chosŏn period, this paper evaluates the conditions in which Ch’oe Puk, a chungin professional artist, could uphold financial independence without governmental patronage through employment within the Tohwasŏ (Royal Bureau of Painting).Although the chungin were not members of the elite class, they were well-educated, occupied technical jobs in the royal government, and some had access to China and Japan through diplomatic missions, allowing for cultural exchange. The late Chosŏn dynasty experienced a surge in cultural consumption reflected by ch’aekkŏri (“books and things”) paintings and the increase in the commissioning and collecting artworks. This increase in consumer culture was spearheaded by the chungin, who accumulated large sums of wealth through international trade. The chungin began to form a group identity as well-educated members of the literati in hopes of gaining higher bureaucratic positions in government. To gain patronage from private citizens, Ch’oe, similarly, increased his social network of members part of the elite society, including Nam Kongch’ŏl (1760-1840), Yi Ik (1681-1763), and Kang Sehwang (1713-1791), in addition to constructing his public persona as an “eccentric” literati artist as seen through short anecdotes written about Ch’oe. Ch’oe was known to have traveled extensively around the Korean peninsula and to Japan as a part of the 1748 envoy mission, although he was there in an unofficial capacity. Through an examination of the economic history of Tongnae and Pyongyang, it is revealed that Ch’oe was not only interested in fledging local economies to expand his artistic business, but also with locations that operated as central locations for foreign travelers and commercial waypoints. Art History Ch'oe Puk Choe Buk Ch'oe Puk: The Making of an Independent Professional Artist in Late Chosŏn Korea