The Lee Kun-Hee collection is considered one of the world’s most significant private collections of Korean art. The visionary Samsung chairman assembled more than 23,000 artworks, spanning around 2,000 years of Korean cultural history, from ancient treasures to modern masterpieces.
Highlights of the Lee Kun-Hee Collection
The trove excels in Joseon white porcelain (baekja), Goryeo celadons, Buddhist sculptures, gilt-bronze pagodas (e.g., 13th-century National Treasure), Joseon paintings like Kim Hong-do’s Taoist Immortals, Goryeo Amitabha Triad, and 20th-century icons by Kim Whanki, Park Soo-keun, and Chang Uc-chin, alongside furniture, manuscripts, and ceramics.
Housed partly at Leeum Samsung Museum of Art (opened 2004, designed by Mario Botta, Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel), it blended Korean heritage with global contemporaries like Louise Bourgeois’s Maman.
Posthumously donated by his family in 2021 to South Korea’s National Museum of Korea and National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (tax-free amid controversy), it sparked debates on display strategies while touring globally: Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared debuted at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (Nov. 2025), moving to Art Institute of Chicago (Mar.–Jul. 2026) and British Museum (Sep. 2026–Jan. 2027), with 20 pieces digitized on Samsung Art Store.
Lee’s passion preserved cultural patrimony; exhibitions highlight 13 National Treasures, fostering interdisciplinary links between tradition and modernity.
Athmaja Biju is the Editor at Abir Pothi. She is a Translator and Writer working on Visual Culture.
