Pen Varlen (Russian: Пен Варлен; Korean: 변월룡; Hanja: 邊月龍; MR: Pyŏn Wŏlryong;[1] September 29, 1916 – May 26, 1990) was a Soviet Russian-Korean painter and graphic artist.

[4] In 1937, while Pen completed his studies in the Sverdlovsk Art School, his parents were forcefully relocated to Central Asia under Stalin's efforts to deport minority groups from within Russia.

With his parents no longer there, Pen remained in the country and after graduating from the Sverdlovsk Art School, enrolled in the prestigious Ilya Repin Leningrad Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (established in 1764).

[7] In 1951, a few years after his return to Russia, Pen earned his doctorate degree and began working as a professor of the Drawing Department at the Ilya Repin Leningrad Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

[5] During his time at the Repin Institute, Pen focused on portraying Korean ethnic subjects with the influence of pro-Soviet themes, highlighting the victorious role that the Soviet Union played in liberating Korea from Japanese colonial rule.

[6] At the Pyongyang College of Arts, Pen helped construct a new curriculum based on Socialist Realism, the main principles of which included "people-ness, class-ness, party-ness, revolutionary romanticism, optimism, hurtfulness, humanism, and the unity of content and form".

Pen also used this training method as a means to eradicate Formalism in the North Korean art scene, which he believed stemmed from the previous Japanese Colonial rule.

[6] As an addition to his 'field sketching' technique, Pen traveled into North Korea with plaster busts of Western ethnic heads as to teach accurate depiction of physiognomy to his students.

[8] After his departure from North Korea, the Pyongyang College of Arts replaced Pen's busts with ones showcasing Korean faces and physiognomy, which remain as a tool used in classes today.

[8] This replacement of the busts was implemented as part of the introduction of the "Juche" ideology, created by Kim Il Sung in order to distance North Korea from the Soviet Union and its influence.

[4] However, shortly after Pen arrived in Russia, Kim Il Sung began to target Soviet-Koreans living in North Korea, which was referred to as the "August Faction Incident".

His offer originated from an agreement made under the "Juche" ideology between Kim Il Sung and the Soviet Union with the aim to abolish dual citizenship.

[8] Once back in the Soviet Union, Pen greatly missed North Korea and continued to create art based on sketches he had made during his time at Pyongyang.

[9] Moon won the 2017 Yumin Award in Culture for his research into Pen's life, shedding light on the artist's contribution to Korean art history.