National Museum of Asian Art Announces Massive Korean Art Exhibition

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) recently announced it will hold the first US exhibition of masterpieces from the collection of former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee this fall.

‘Korean Treasures’ 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.

“It was quite popular in Korea and I think there will be a lot of interest in this show from the Korean American community,” Sunwoo Hwang, NMAA’s Inaugural Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art and Culture, told ARTnews. “And we’re very excited to introduce the diversity, depth and breadth of Korean art from the Lee Kun-Hee Collection.”

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Co-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.

‘Korean Treasures’ will also be the largest and “most comprehensive” presentation of Korean art ever shown at the NMAA, before it travels to the AIC and the British Museum.

“So although this is a traveling exhibition, each institution has own unique interpretation,” Hwang told ARTnews. “I 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.”

Nine items on loan from the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul will also be shown exclusively at the NMAA.

“It ended up that our venue has the largest selection of objects,” 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.

Among 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.

Hwang 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.

“It’s his birthplace, and it’s a prominent mountain in Korea,” she said, describing it as capturing the moment when rain is starting to clear in the mountains, but water has soaked into the rocks. “I think lot of Korean people feel related to this painting, because it’s the mountain they often see. They’re familiar with it.”

Hwang 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 (1417–1468), as part of ‘Korean Treasures’. The work from the early Joseon period features Chinese characters and Korean ones next to each other.

Notably, King Sejo created Hangul, the Korean alphabet, and revealed it in 1443. “The Korean alphabet is special in that it is maybe only language that we know, the creator and the date of creation,” Hwang explained.

“He wanted to create letters so that people can easily communicate in writing,” Hwang said. “And so after creating this alphabet system, the Joseon court actually published a lot of books and Buddhist texts as well.”

There’s also a historical artwork featured in ‘Korean Treasures’ 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 traditional Korean art and folklore.

“Because of the popularity of that animated movie, more people started to visit [the NMAA],” Hwang said, noting she hasn’t watched KPop Demon Hunters yet.

With the popularity of Korean culture right now, Hwang sees an opportunity for ‘Korean Treasures’ and the NMAA to reach a much more diverse group of visitors. “I think there was a time when Chinese culture was very popular and also a time when Japanese culture was very popular,” she said. “So I’m pretty sure this will move on. But I think through this opportunity really allows us to introduce Korean culture to wider audience globally.”

A massive collection to search through and draw from

Lee Kun Hee’s collection comprises of more than 23,000 works collected over more than seven decades, and was donated to the Republic of Korean by Lee’s family in 2021.

Lee and his wife Hong Rae-Hee ranked on the ARTnews Top 200 Collector’s list in 2015 and 2016. Lee died in 2020.

Conversations 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.

Hwang 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.

Choosing from such a large inventory for ‘Korean Treasures’ wasn’t 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, the National Museum of Korea’s catalogs about the collection by specific medium, and a comprehensive catalog from the MMCA of the entire Lee Kun-Hee collection.

The ‘Korean Treasures’ exhibition will be on view at the NMAA from November 8 through February 1, 2026.