{"id":86137,"date":"2025-08-16T01:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T01:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/86137\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T01:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T01:58:11","slug":"national-museum-of-asian-art-announces-massive-korean-art-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/86137\/","title":{"rendered":"National Museum of Asian Art Announces Massive Korean Art Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of Asian Art<\/a> (NMAA) recently announced it will hold the first US exhibition of masterpieces from the collection of former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee<\/a> this fall. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u2018Korean Treasures\u2019 will feature more than 200 items from the collection spanning 1,500 years, including a dozen National Treasures designated by the Korean government, and many items being exhibited in the US for the first time. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was quite popular in Korea and I think there will be a lot of interest in this show from the Korean American community,\u201d Sunwoo Hwang, NMAA\u2019s Inaugural Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art and Culture, told ARTnews. \u201cAnd we\u2019re very excited to introduce the diversity, depth and breadth of Korean art from the Lee Kun-Hee Collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tCo-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Korea, the exhibition will a broad range of items, including ancient Buddhist sculptures, ceramics, paintings, furnishings and modern masterpieces. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u2018Korean Treasures\u2019 will also be the largest and \u201cmost comprehensive\u201d presentation of Korean art ever shown at the NMAA, before it travels to the AIC and the British Museum.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo although this is a traveling exhibition, each institution has own unique interpretation,\u201d Hwang told ARTnews. \u201cI think this was possible because the collection was so large, and we were able to make that selection, and our partners allowed us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNine items on loan from the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul will also be shown exclusively at the NMAA. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt ended up that our venue has the largest selection of objects,\u201d Hwang said with a laugh, noting the size of the objects range from a water dropper to large screen paintings and contemporary oil paintings on canvas.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJeong Seon (1676\u20131759), Clearing after Rain on Mount Inwang, 1751. \u00a9 National Museum of Korea<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNational Museum of Korea<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the highlights are the masterpiece Clearing after Rain on Mount Inwang (1751) by Jeong Seon, one of the largest paintings from the Joseon period, measuring 7.4-feet wide by 5-feet-tall.<\/p>\n

\n\tHwang said Clearing after Rain on Mount Inwang is significant for Korean art history because it depicts an actual landscape in Korea, instead of of idealized or imaginary one. Jeong Seon was a pioneer of the true view landscape genre and the ink painting depicts the actual neighborhood the artist grew up with. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s his birthplace, and it\u2019s a prominent mountain in Korea,\u201d she said, describing it as capturing the moment when rain is starting to clear in the mountains, but water has soaked into the rocks. \u201cI think lot of Korean people feel related to this painting, because it\u2019s the mountain they often see. They\u2019re familiar with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Collection\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCompiled and edited by King Sejo (1417\u20131468), Episodes from the Life of Buddha Shakyamuni as Reflections of the Moon (Worin seokbo), Vol. 11. (1459) \u00a9 National Museum of Korea<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNational Museum of Korea<\/p>\n

\n\tHwang is also particularly excited about showing Episodes from the Life of Buddha Shakyamuni as Reflections of the Moon (Worin seokbo), Vol. 11, a book of woodblock prints from 1459 compiled and edited by King Sejo (1417\u20131468), as part of \u2018Korean Treasures\u2019. The work from the early Joseon period features Chinese characters and Korean ones next to each other.<\/p>\n

\n\tNotably, King Sejo\u2019s father, King Sejong, created Hangul, the Korean alphabet, and revealed it in 1443. \u201cThe Korean alphabet is special in that it is maybe only language that we know, the creator and the date of creation,\u201d Hwang explained.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe wanted to create letters so that people can easily communicate in writing,\u201d Hwang said. \u201cAnd so after creating this alphabet system, the Joseon court actually published a lot of books and Buddhist texts as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSun, Moon, and Five Peaks. 19th century. Credit: \u00a9 National Museum of Korea<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNational Museum of Korea<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s also a historical artwork featured in \u2018Korean Treasures\u2019 that has recently entered popular culture. The six-panel folding screen Sun, Moon, and Five Peaks was placed behind the royal throne during the Joseon Dynasty, and is featured in the hit Netflix movie KPop Demon Hunters. The film prominently includes<\/a> traditional Korean art and folklore.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBecause of the popularity of that animated movie, more people started to visit [the NMAA],\u201d Hwang said, noting she hasn\u2019t watched KPop Demon Hunters yet. <\/p>\n

\n\tWith the popularity of Korean culture right now, Hwang sees an opportunity for \u2018Korean Treasures\u2019 and the NMAA to reach a much more diverse group of visitors. \u201cI think there was a time when Chinese culture was very popular and also a time when Japanese culture was very popular,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I\u2019m pretty sure this will move on. But I think through this opportunity really allows us to introduce Korean culture to wider audience globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA massive collection to search through and draw from<\/p>\n

\n\tLee Kun Hee\u2019s collection comprises of more than 23,000 works collected over more than seven decades, and was donated to the Republic of Korean by Lee\u2019s family in 2021. <\/p>\n

\n\tLee and his wife Hong Ra-Hee ranked on the ARTnews Top 200 Collector\u2019s list<\/a> in 2015 and 2016. Lee died in 2020.<\/p>\n

\n\tConversations about bringing the large-scale exhibition to Washington, D.C. first started three years ago between the National Museum of Korea and the Art Institute of Chicago, who were looking for a venue. The NMAA also has a pre-existing relationship with the National Museum of Korea after an exhibition on Korean roof tiles in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tHwang said that pre-existing relationship, and the enthusiastic support of NMAA director Chase F. Robinson, allowed for at least three research trips to South Korea to see exhibitions of the Lee Kun-Hee collection, which includes more than 23,000 items.<\/p>\n

\n\tChoosing from such a large inventory for \u2018Korean Treasures\u2019 wasn\u2019t easy, even with existing checklists from those domestic exhibitions. Important resources for Hwang and her curatorial colleagues at the NMAA included the rapid digitization and registration of the Lee Kun-Hee collection, an online catalog that is easily searchable online<\/a>, the National Museum of Korea\u2019s catalogs about the collection by specific medium, and a comprehensive catalog from the MMCA of the entire Lee Kun-Hee collection.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u2018Korean Treasures\u2019 exhibition will be on view at the NMAA from November 8 through February 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tEditor\u2019s Note: August 15, 2025: A previous version misspelled the name Hong Ra-Hee. ARTnews regrets the error.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) recently announced it will hold the first US exhibition of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[59418,228,226,227,229,88,59419,59420,59421],"class_list":["post-86137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-artnews-top-200-collectors","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-lee-kun-hee","tag-national-museum-of-asian-art","tag-smithsonianu2019s-national-museum-of-asian-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}