The year he turned 28, he founded the Contemporary Artists Association with Park Seo-bo and others and led the Art Informel style.
In 1965, he went to New York with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and stayed four years. In 1969, he moved to Paris.
The breakthrough yearThe year he turned 43, he showed Event of Night, a transparent water drop floating on a dark ground, at the Salon de Mai in Paris. Yonhap and Munhwa Ilbo write that his name became known in the international art world from then.
In 1973, he held his first solo show in Paris. In 1976, Gallery Hyundai held his first invitational show, and Newspim writes that it made his water-drop works known in Korea. Around 1986, he began adding the Thousand Character Classic to the canvas. In 1990, he held a homecoming show at Hyundai Hwarang, three years after the last one.
In 1996, he received the Chevalier rank of the French Order of Arts and Letters. In 2004, he held a large retrospective at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris. In 2005, he held an invitational show at the National Museum of China in Beijing, the first Korean painter to do so.
In 2013, he held a solo show at Gallery Hyundai. In 2016, he donated 220 representative works, and the Jeju Kim Tschang-yeul Museum opened. In 2017, he received the Officier rank of the French Order of Arts and Letters.
In 2021, the year he turned 92, he died. In 2022, the year after his death, a documentary directed by his son opened.
In 2024, Gallery Hyundai held a show for the third anniversary of his death. In 2025, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art held the first large-scale retrospective since his death. In 2026, his studio in Pyeongchang-dong opened as the Kim Tschang-yeul Painter’s House.
Kim Tschang-yeul (born 1929) took part in founding the Contemporary Artists Association in 1957, the year he turned 28, and became known in the international art world when he showed Event of Night at the Salon de Mai in Paris in 1972, the year he turned 43. He died on Jan 5, 2021, the year he turned 92.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.