[KS] Korean Art market during the colonial period?

[Hyung Il Pai]

  Dear Frank,
I do not know any article perse but there are lots of indirect  
materials written by famous collectors during the colonial period who  
travelled widely in Korea in the 1920s and 1930s buying and selling.
The include Asakawa Hakkyo, Asakawa Takume, Yanagi Soetsu etc. They  
were part of an organization called the "Chosen Kogei Kenkyukai" ,In   
the 1930s , this society attracted enough members and fans to put on   
exhibitions at departments stores like Takashimaya in Tokyo. They  
published a series of thick catalogues for sale.
  Their sponsors were also rich collectors and antiquity dealers who  
had branches in Seoul and Tokyo. Their exhibition catalogues include  
not only Nangnang antiquities but the whole range of Korean pottery  
from Paekche to Punch'ong. The biggest  zaibatsu Suntory and Ogura  
Pre-war collections are now part of the collections exhibited at the  
Osaka Museum of Oriental Ceramics
It seems there was a vibrant market and this is also confirmed by the  
number of local preservation societies at historical capitals like  
Kyungju, Puyo, Kaesong, Pusan etc.

Song Sok-ha's biographies also contain many references to how he had  
to compete with these Japanese collectors to get the best deals at  
their favorite shops. The information also travelled fast when a "good  
piece"-obviously looted from a grave site, appeared on the market. It  
was definitely a supply and demand market place at that time and quite  
international at that.


They also wrote articles introducing the history of Korea art and  
especially ceramics as well as colonial ceramic industries in official  
colonial government journals such as "Chosen" and "Chosen Iho ."
Hope this helps. If you type in the names of these colonial collectors  
in Chinese characters in Japanese google or wikipedia-books on these  
collectors published both in  Korea and Japan also show up.
As for modern art, recent issues of Misulsa Nondan I believe have  
articles on modern art exhibitions in Taiwan and Chosen and how they  
fared, but I do not think they dealt with the market.
Thank you bringing up an important topic.

Hyung Il Pai
-- 
Hyung Il Pai (April 07-March 08)
Visiting Research Professor
International Research Center for Japanese Studies
Nishikyo-ku, Goryo, Oeyama cho 3-2, Kyoto 613-1192
Japan
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