Leo Kim Collection

Collection

Identifier: Mss 3086

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Leo Kim manuscript collection contains the following: (1) personal correspondence consisting of extended written letters, Christmas cards and letters, and general cards; (2) personal notes, quotes, and passages; (3) various ephemera material; (4) physical artifacts; (5) promotional project material and published works; (6) news articles, clippings, and newspaper scrapbooks; (7) and finally, large poster material.

The extended letters are arranged topically and are in alphabetical order. They contain correspondence regarding friends, family, personnel updates, projects, volunteering, and thank-you letters. Christmas cards and letters have been broadly separated into dated and non-dated categories in alphabetical order. Postcards and letters containing family pictures are separated into their own folders. Folders containing postcards with family pictures also have a corresponding list of names. The first name on the list corresponds to the first postcard in the front of the folder. General cards and correspondence are arranged topically and in alphabetical order. They contain correspondence regarding personnel updates, birthdays, invitations, health, and ‘thank-you’ related cards. The last three folders contain business cards, poster cards, and unidentified cards made by, or kept by, Mr. Kim.

Notes, passages, and quotes are arranged topically and in alphabetical order. They contain notes on historical dates and names, North Dakota Prairie Landscape book passages, and photography. Poems and quotes from other individuals were also kept and have been separated into two general categories-authored and non-authored. This distinction was made based on information that could be found on the documents themselves. Finally, vocabulary notes of several languages and their English translations were kept by Mr. Kim.

Ephemera contains official forms, guest books, notebooks, journals, personal identification, and maps. They are arranged by topic and in alphabetical order. The guest books are from several of Mr. Kim’s art exhibits. Several notebooks contain information regarding Mr. Kim’s contacts and daily journal of expenditures and experiences during his time compiling photos for the North Dakota Prairie Landscape publication. Mr. Kim kept several old passports and personal identification from earlier years as well as maps from his travels.

Physical artifacts content was arranged by what could be placed into folders and what could not. Content is not topically or alphabetically assigned. Most items are related to North Dakota or from the prior travels of Mr. Kim. Travel documents are contained in an envelope made up of old train and plane tickets, bus tickets, exhibit or activity tickets, and stamps. Items that are not found within specific folders are the Mount St. Helens volcanic ash and a collection of 5 pins.

Promotional project material and publications are arranged in alphabetical order. This section primarily contains corporate and industrial photography projects undertaken by Mr. Kim. The material created by Mr. Kim was used for marketing and informational purposes by the associated companies. Magazine articles, flyers, and pamphlets were marketing material for exhibits done by Mr. Kim. Book proofs and published books contain the two primary book projects completed by Mr. Kim. The first several folders contain the proofs for North Dakota Prairie Landscape and St. Paul Serenity. The books found within are their final publications. Newspaper articles are arranged by the newspaper name and in alphabetical order. The final folder in this section are unidentified newspaper articles kept by Mr. Kim. Any newspaper company that has two or more articles associated with it are then arranged in alphabetical order by title of the article. Articles that were removed from the initial collection that contained no clear mention of Mr. Kim were removed and listed. The magazine and newspaper scrapbook contains a Life magazine and a personal project done by Leo Kim. The magazine contains a copy of Life magazine with an article related to the death of Mr. Kim’s mother. The scrapbook contains primarily local articles from The Forum, Sunday Forum, and Farmers Forum newspapers during Mr. Kim’s earlier years in North Dakota. The final section of the Leo Kim manuscript collection are numerous posters or poster-size material, many of which relate directly to the promotional project material and publication section. This section also contains the poster board with signatures during the time Mr. Kim achieved U.S citizenship as well as drawings made by Mr. Kim or received by him. The number of items contained within each folder is listed.

Dates

1966 - 2006

Creator

Kim, Leo, 1946- (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open under the rules and regulations of the NDSU Archives.

Copyrights

Copyrights to this collection are held by The North Dakota State University Archives.

Biographical / Historical

Born to Korean parents in what was then, Japanese occupied Shanghai, China on January 19th, 1946, Leo Louis Kim’s early life had a bleak beginning. His parents had fled North Korea before the Korean War and had to also flee mainland China during the Communist Revolution. His father, Peter Kim, was a businessman who had died just a month before he was born. This left his mother, Cecilia Ling Kim, with four young children in a country where Koreans were not welcome. With the help of missionaries, the family made their way to the Portuguese colony of Macao after being instructed by the communist Chinese government to get out of the country. In 1956-with help from the Red Cross-the Kim’s were able to cross into Hong Kong. However, being a British colony at the time, authorities would not let them stay within its borders for longer than seventy-two hours. His mother had destroyed the family's Korean passports believing that it would increase their chances of securing political asylum in Hong Kong. Mistaken, she and her children were forced to shuttle between Hong Kong and Macao, trying to stay ahead of authorities and constantly re-applying for visas.

Forced to navigate through much of East Asia, Leo Kim had been exposed to several languages during his early primary education. The Kim’s spoke Korean at home; however, he had to change between several schools that were taught in French (first grade), Chinese (second & third), and Portuguese (fourth & fifth). He was not introduced to English until he entered the sixth grade. As a young adult, he continued to live and go to school in the Hong Kong and the Macao region. Roughly twenty years later on March 5th, 1966, British Airways commercial airliner flight crashed on Mt. Fuji in Japan shortly after take off from Tokyo. A total of 124 passengers lost their lives including Leo’s Mother. He had been waiting in Hong Kong to meet her when the news broke. He later received a telegram stating that authorities had positively identified his mother.

After his mother's death, Leo was able to join his older sister who was living and studying in Vienna, Austria. Having recently finished high school in Hong Kong, he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study German and art history. The classes, of course, were primarily taught in German, adding yet another language for Leo to decipher. Here he was exposed to the work of Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, and the colorful photographs of Ernst Has, which heavily influenced Leo’s own early photography. While the aforementioned artists inspired Leo's early work, his initial interest in photography did not come from them, but from language. Since Leo was forced around much of East Asia as a child, and parts of Europe in early adulthood, he had been exposed to and had to function in at least five different languages. Having not the time nor desire to master any of them, photography thus became his primary language. English remained relatively difficult for Leo even throughout his years in the United States.

Having lived and gone to school in Austria for a few years and running short on funds, he began looking at photographs of the United States. In 1969, and at the age of twenty-two, he decided to touch down in North Dakota. He chose North Dakota because of the advertised low cost of living, college tuition, and the wide-open spaces, compared to the cramped and overpopulated region of Macao. At the time, North Dakota had a total of 540,000 people in the entire state compared to Macao’s 58,000 per square mile. The serenity and peacefulness of the state left a lasting impression on him. He enrolled in the School of Science at Wahpeton in North Dakota before transferring to North Dakota State University, School of Architecture the following year. Early on he had thoughts of becoming an architect; however, it was here that his life-long hobby of photography- and his experiences studying different languages, art history, architecture, commercial photography, and photojournalism- culminated into the beginnings of his professional career.

He began by freelancing and taking pictures for The Spectrum. Around the same time, he was brought onto the 1971/1972 Bison Annual for designing, photography, and coediting. They employed him part time during the school year and full time during the summer. He continued his early work at The Forum as well as the editor of The Standing Rock Star in Fort Yates at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. After departing North Dakota State University, Leo Kim continued to support himself contracting as a professional photographer with his company, Leo & Associates. Many projects came through via referrals from previous projects he had worked on. One of which was in affiliation with Lutheran Hospitals and Homes in Fargo, North Dakota; where he helped produce several annual reports.

Having lived in the United States for nearly a decade, Leo Kim now age thirty-four, eventually met Beth Kristine Smith who was twenty-nine. They ended up marrying on May 3rd, 1980 in Fargo, North Dakota. Their marriage was short lived however, as the two divorced on November 10th, 1982. In 1985, Leo sold his house in North Dakota and eventually made his way to the Lowertown neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here he set up his photography studio in an old John Deere engine factory. It featured two shooting bays, a small darkroom for personal workings and film loadings, and an office with lots of plants, of which he reportedly enjoyed caring for.

In Minneapolis, he continued with his corporate and commercial photography. Here he also experimented with still-life, abstract, and portrait photography. While his still-life and abstract photos were not always for assignments, he would always be experimenting with light, angles, exposure, and color. Many companies sought out Leo to gain a creative look at their company’s seemingly mundane products. One example was Quadon which was a company that used injection molded plastic, rubber, and aluminum die castings in consumer products. It was Leo’s job to shed a creative light on their products and use cases. Continuing in focusing his commercial efforts, he completed projects for companies like Dupont, Innovex, John Deere, Wells Fargo, Honeywell, Rockwell International, American Express, Mohawk Paper Mills, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, University of Minnesota, and Fairview Hospitals of Minneapolis. He had also worked with Jo Davison, the creative director at the Edison Group in Minneapolis to produce a brochure for Bay West.

After years of balancing life events, and the competition of keeping hard-headed clients happy he decided to pack up again. He traveled to North Dakota to take on a new project. Between the years 1998 and 2002, he traveled around the entire state of North Dakota. Capturing its serene landscapes, he visited all 53 counties, 224 towns, and spoke with dozens of individuals in cafes, churches, and even in the middle of fields. In a journal, he kept track of some of his expenses and some parts of his adventure. Some of the stories and photos of the North Dakota countryside were compiled into the book in 2003 titled, North Dakota Prairie Landscape. He dedicated the book to the people of the state. Even though Leo deliberately kept people out of these photographs, there would certainly be evidence that people inhabited the land. His core focus with the book was to always find the beauty in the seemingly mundane and serene. This continued into his second legacy project-St. Paul Serenity. The final product for St. Paul Serenity was a book of 44 black-and-white photos that contained many of the city's natural parks and urban squares. The first edition was published in 2010. Leo ran a short campaign to fundraise for the book to help keep the work of publishing it in the local economy of Minneapolis.

By the end of Leo’s career, he had produced roughly 3,607 prints, 29,966 negatives, and 11,400 slides. In addition to all of his photos and finished projects, he kept many school notes, Christmas cards, and nearly every letter sent to him throughout his life. Many of his clients noted he would always leave a personal touch to whatever project he was working on and maintained close contact with them, often reaching out every six months to network. He seemingly preferred one-on-one contact rather than contact via email or similar medium. He was always noted to be very personable, humble, intelligent, and creative. Over the years, his work has been featured in various publications, such as the Photo District News, Photo Design, the Star Tribune, Stuttgart (Germany) monthly magazine, and Minnesota Public Radio. His work appeared in art galleries all throughout the Midwest and in parts of Europe, including the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks and German American Institute Gallery in Heidelberg. His photography also garnered him several awards, such as the Gold Award for corporate photography from the Photo/Design magazine, New York, and many regional professional publications. He would always try to view what he was working on as if he were seeing it for the first time with no one to influence his perceptions. Leo Kim passed on August 18th, 2019, at the age of 73.