For more than seven decades, the family behind electronics giant Samsung amassed one of Asia’s largest private art collections. Now, with thousands of its priceless works in public hands following the death of the conglomerate’s chairman, the collection is being put to new use — as part of South Korea’s “K-culture” soft-power drive.
More than 200 of the 23,000 objects gifted to the country in 2021 by the late Lee Kun-hee’s estate — thought to be part of a deal to settle an inheritance tax bill of over 12 trillion won ($8.2 billion) — are going on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC this month.
Spanning 1,500 years, the items selected by the Smithsonian’s curators for “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” give visitors a glimpse of the roots and evolution of Korea’s modern identity, as well as the motivations of the notoriously private Lee family.
The objects range from rare Buddhist sculptures and sacred texts to antique furniture and 20th-century paintings by pioneering artists like Lee Ungno and Kim Whanki, who curators say redefined Korean painting in a modernizing world.
The Lee Kun-hee collection spans paintings, s
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