초록/요약

Elizabeth Keith (1887/8-1956) was a British artist whose colour prints depicting Far Eastern subjects have once gripped the visual imagination of art lovers. At her prime in the 1930s, she was even ranked in the same league as Hiroshige and Hokusai, the eminent old masters of Japanese Ukiyo-e (浮世絵). Based largely on newly discovered contemporary sources such as newspapers and hitherto unpublished correspondence, this article has two overlapping aims. First, it seeks to provide a contextual account of Keith’s life in broadly chronological order. Second, it attempts to highlight her relations with Korea: not only was her career as a popular printmaker made possible thanks to her early depiction of Korean subjects but later in life she devoted her energy to producing an illustrated book on Korea. Keith, of course, happened to live in the age of imperialism, and there is no doubt that she colluded, if unconsciously, in orientalising Korea and the Far East. Criticising her simply for being an implicit imperialist, however, does not do justice to her achievements any more than lionising her as a selfless lover of Korea does. After all, the decision to settle in East Asia and to become a printmaker specialising in Far Eastern subjects was ingenious for a British ‘surplus woman’ to make. As an historical actor and agent, Keith did what she was willing and able to do within the boundary of real life options available to her. This article purports to locate Keith and her art within the