The National Museum of Korea from June will exhibit artworks donated from the private collection of the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on April 28 said Lee's bereaved family donated 11,023 works (approximately 23,000 pieces) from his collection to the museum and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Receiving 9,797 works (about 21,600 pieces), the National Museum of Korea will hold a special exhibition of works from Lee's collection in June.
The donated items include 60 government-designated cultural assets such as "Inwangjesaekdo (Scene of Inwangsan Mountain After Rain)," which is designated National Treasure No. 216, by Joseon Dynasty landscape painter Jeong Seon and "Chuseongbudo (Theme of Chuseongbu, Sounds of Autumn)," the last work of the famous 18th-century artist Kim Hong-do and designated Treasure 1393.
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art received 1,226 works (approximately 1,400 pieces) and will hold in August an exhibition of masterpieces from Lee's collection in Seoul. Other special and permanent exhibitions will follow in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi-do Province (September), and Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do Province (next year).
The donations include 460 works by leading domestic modern artists including Lee Jung-seob, Kim Whanki and Park Soo-keun and masterpieces by foreign masters like Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Salvador Dali and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The works to be displayed include "Bull" by Lee Jung-seob, "Woman Pounding Grain" by Park, "Women and Jars" by Kim, "Water Lily Pond" by Monet, "Family of Marsupial Centaurs" by Dali, "La Lecture (The Reading)" by Renoir and "Red Bouquet with Lovers" by Marc Chagall.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hwang Hee thanked the Lee family for donating the late chairman's lifelong collection of cultural heritage and art for the development of the nation's culture and arts sector.
"This is the first large-scale donation to the nation of major artworks with high government-designated cultural, artistic and historical value," he said. "This will go down as one of the largest examples of charity difficult to find even abroad."