Chŏng Hak-gyo's courtesy name was Hwakyŏng (化景), his sobriquet Mongin (夢人) or Hyang-su (香壽), and his lineage was of Naju. A literati painter of the late Korean Empire period who served as a county magistrate, he was particularly celebrated for his paintings of fantastically shaped scholar's rocks, earning recognition as the foremost practitioner of that subject in his day. He is equally well known as the person who contributed inscriptions to the greatest number of works by his contemporary, the great painter Chang Sŭng-ŏp (張承業). The background to Chŏng Hak-gyo's specialization in the painting of scholar's rocks is most likely to be found in the widespread fashion for such paintings that prevailed in Qing dynasty China.

His paintings of scholar's rocks characteristically place stones of varied and unusual form at the center of a vertically elongated picture surface, accompanied by bamboo, plum blossom, orchid, and an inscribed verse. Works in this vein were also produced in considerable number in the formats of paired hanging scrolls and folding screens. The works under discussion vary somewhat in size and support material, suggesting that each was executed on a separate occasion.

A connection to Chang Sŭng-ŏp — for whom Chŏng Hak-gyo wrote inscriptions so frequently — is also discernible in his paintings. The forms of scholar's rocks seen in these works — rounded and cloud-like in contour, or pierced with numerous apertures — appear as well in Chang Sŭng-ŏp's landscape and bird-and-animal paintings. Furthermore, Chang Sŭng-ŏp's paintings of eagles characteristically show the bird perched upon bizarrely formed rocks, and it is possible that the pictorial motif itself was suggested by his close association with Chŏng Hak-gyo.