[KS] Korean Art market during the colonial period

Keith Pratt k_l_pratt at yahoo.co.uk
Tue Sep 25 06:06:05 EDT 2007


Dear List readers,

I too would be interested to hear of any sources on
art collecting in the Colonial Period. The obvious
names that spring to mind are O Sech'ang, Ch0n
Hy0ngp'il and Kim S0ngsu, but there must obviously
have been more, among the Japanese as well as Koreans.


Youngna Kim ('20th Century Korean Art') says that 'few
of the Korean works shown in the exhibitions
[officially approved by the Japanese authorities] are
existent', but some obviously did survive once they
had come down from the walls. Some have now ended up
in the great national collections, others in
university museums and presumably more in private
collections. What happened to them in the meantime?
Japanese collectors would presumably have been quite
entitled to buy up whatever they liked, but were the
motives of Korean purchasers likely to be questioned?
And as far as antiquities were concerned: was there a
black market in objects squirreled away from
archaeological digs, besides the stuff that went into
the Sotokufu Museum vaults? Were Koreans who could
afford to collect, say, reminders of life in the
Chos0n period free to do so, or would this have
brought them under suspicion? 

Frank's query is a fascinating one, not only by
referring to the system in general but also by
suggesting the possibility of individual stories. I
hope it prompts some answers!

Keith

 



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