Interacting closely with Murai Masanari[2] and Hasegawa Saburo,[3] pioneers of Japanese abstract painting, YYK participated actively in avant-garde movements in Japan and became a fellow of the Association of Free Artists (自由美術家協會, AFA).

After the Sao Paulo biennial in 1963, YYK withdrew from group activities and focused on solo exhibitions which were held every other year for two decades.

From the sixties on, YYK suffered from numerous illnesses and was confined to activities in a wheelchair, but he continued to paint until 3 years before his death at the age of eighty-six.

YYK was born in 1916, six years after the annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire, in Uljin, a city on the east coast located at the end of Taebaek mountains in Gangwon province, as the third son (sixth of eight children) between Yoo Moonjong (1876–1946) and Hwang Dongho (1880–1963).

Yoo Moonjong provided substantial military rations to General Shin Dol-seok at the end of the Korean Empire (1906) and founded Jedong Elementary School (1922).

However, he had to change his plan because the merchant marine academy at Yokohama, which YYK wished to enter, required a high school diploma for an application.

Instead, YYK decided to enter the oil painting department of the Bunka Gakuin University in Tokyo, an art school known for its liberal campus atmosphere and policies.

It was at Bunka Gakuin that YYK first encountered western art and learned about works of old masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, and others from artbooks at the school.

Amazed at the exquisiteness of their work, YYK thought that there was nothing more for him to add to the traditional field, and decided to pursue something completely different, abstract painting from the start.

The avant-garde movement in Japan already started in the 1920s, and by the time YYK arrived at Tokyo (1935) Russian futurism and constructivism were widely permeated to Japanese art scenes.

Hasegawa Saburo and Murai Masanari, who had been to Paris, were leading Japanese avant-garde movements, and also organizers of the Association of Free Artists (AFA).

The originals were produced in the late 1930s, not much later than Piet Mondrian and Jean Arp, leaders of Abstraction-Création group in Paris, showing that YYK was keenly aware of French avant-garde movements and tried to join the most cutting-edge trends.

To his luck, demands for liquors soared up as many refugees from North Korea flocked into the area, and by hard work and business skill YYK became the most prosperous man in town within few years.

The first solo exhibition in 1964 firmly established YYK as the leading abstract painter of Korea and earned him a new reputation, the magician of colors.

The last period was tinged with frequent illnesses, yet YYK continued to paint endowing characteristic lyricism to his work until three years to death.

Back in Seoul, YYK established Modern Art Association (MAA) with fellow artists,[12] which initiated the era of group exhibitions in Korea (1956).

Furthering the issue, he established ShinSang-Hoe (New Form Group, 新象會)[15] with the goal of discovering and promoting young artists through fair selection processes (1962).

YYK had a belief that an artist must watch the tide of times closely, analyze where it is heading, and prepare for the days when he reaches the peak of his career.

[18] Observations on the works of leading artists and communication with them are very helpful in the process, but virtually isolated from the mainstream, YYK had to find his own way relying on self-study and self-introspection.

Dedicating most of his time and energy to group activities and to a guiding role over general direction of Korean art, YYK did not hold solo exhibitions until he was forty-nine years old, much later than his colleagues.

Hours of walking along Jukbyeon beach, passing around the lighthouse, and visiting local fish market were relaxing moments.The first exhibition was the most monumental and landmark success that was widely praised for excelling in aesthetics and sincerity of the theme.

[19] Kim Byungki, an art critic and artist, wrote that "the energy bursting out from the painting, like lava exploding from a crate, delivers inexplicable emotions to the viewers.

[23] Primary and complementary colors were used to escalate the visual sensation, and lines intersecting the spaces diagonally, vertically, and horizontally imparted a sense of dynamism to the canvas where essential figurative elements of natural objects were extracted in their simplest forms and repeatedly duplicated to provide depth and perspective to the painting.

Shades of the sunlight and spatial composition drawn as straight lines or main figures appearing as negative exposition inside the primary color field were typical characteristics of YYK's work of this period.

The newly built house[24] was very quiet and surrounded by a little hill at the back with many trees, and he could watch pheasants resting in backyards through the windows of his atelier.

In comparison, works made in his eighties reflect the solemn moments of a man confronting his ultimate destiny in peacefulness and serenity.A survey of 20 art critics on leading artists by the Monthly Art magazine (October issue) in 1990 evaluated YYK’s artistry as the most outstanding among 136 leading Korean fine artists including 61 western style painters, 42 Korean traditional painters, and 33 sculptors.

When he passed away in 2002, his lifelong perseverance and tenacity in the pursuit of abstract painting and puritan work ethic as a professional painter were widely praised in public[28] and his funeral was attended by three thousand people.

Posthumously MMCA held the centennial exhibition in his honor in 2016 with a title of Absoluteness and Freedom at the Deoksugung palace in Seoul, which was a third of its kind after Lee Jung-seob and Varlen Pen.

[29] The exhibition at Kukje gallery in 2022 with the title of Colors of Yoo Youngkuk was attended by sixty thousand people, drawing wide attention from the public.