Second daughter of Chun Kyung-ja files a lawsuit to prove maternity

The second daughter of Chun Kyung-ja, renowned Korean artist who passed away in August 2015, and the late Kim Nam-jung, former chairman of Jeonil Group, filed a lawsuit to prove that Chun is her mother. She explains that this lawsuit is to engage in a legal dispute to regain her mother’s reputation from controversy over a forgery scandal regarding “Beautiful Woman,” one of her major works.

The Seoul Family Court said Sunday that Kim Jeong-hui (aged 63), the second daughter of Chun, had filed a lawsuit before the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Thursday to prove that Chun is her mother. The son of Kim Jong-woo, the youngest son of Chun, joined the lawsuit to prove the mother-son relationship between Chun and his father. Kim Jeong-hui and Kim Jong-woo are not recognized as legitimate children of Chun in the family register.

The late artist Chun Kyung-ja had two children, Lee Hye-seon and Lee Nam-hun, from her first marriage with Lee Hyung-sik. After divorce, she met Kim Nam-jung and had two other children, Kim Jeong-hui and Kim Jong-woo. Kim Jeong-hui is an artist herself and a professor at Montgomery College in Maryland, the U.S. Kim Jong-woo, former president of Sejong Bookstore, had taken care of Chun until she moved to the U.S. in 1997, before dying at the age of 51 in 2007. Kim Nam-jung, the second love of Chun’s life, was legally married to another woman. As such, Kim Jeong-hui and Kim Jong-woo were placed in Kim Nam-jung’s family register, with his legal wife recorded as their mother.

According to Kim Jeong-hui, the lawsuit is to secure public recognition before exercising her rights as the family of the deceased and it is a prerequisite to prove that “Beautiful Woman” is a forgery.

Once the mother-daughter relationship is proved, Kim Jeong-hui plans to file a damage suit against the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), which claims that “Beautiful Woman” is an authentic work of Chun, and initiate criminal defamation charges.

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