Korean masterworks make US debut at Smithsonian

More than 200 rare works from Korea’s most significant private art donation opened to the public on Saturday at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., where they will remain on view through Feb. 22, 2026. The exhibition brings pieces once held exclusively in the late Lee Kun Hee’s personal collection into a major international museum for the first time. Visitors are viewing objects that shaped Korea’s cultural history across centuries and were previously accessible only within Korea’s national institutions.

Depth of the collection: The exhibition “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” features 330 objects that span roughly 1,500 years of Korean art, from the Three Kingdoms period through the 20th century. The selection includes National Treasures designated by the South Korean government along with celadon, white porcelain, gilt bronze Buddhist sculptures and modern paintings. Many of the objects come from the donation of 23,000 works made by Lee Kun Hee’s family to South Korean institutions in 2021.

Visitor experience: The museum organized the exhibition into 10 thematic galleries that reflect the cultural settings in which the works were originally created and used, including royal courts, Buddhist temples, Confucian academies and scholars studios. “By creating thematic galleries, we thought we could help visitors understand the original contexts where these objects were used, made and sponsored,” said curator Hwang Sun Woo. Several pieces were also lent by the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul to expand the range of historical periods and materials on display.

Significance for Korean art access: Museum director Chase F. Robinson said the exhibition is “the largest Korean show we have ever done at our museum and, for some time, the most important show of Korean art in the U.S.” The presentation marks the first time these works have been exhibited outside Korea following their transfer to public ownership in 2021. The museum’s installation provides access to objects that have rarely been available to audiences in the U.S.