The Lee Kun-hee Collection touring exhibition, featuring over 330 masterpieces including seven National Treasures, has drawn 3.5 million visitors across South Korea and is now traveling internationally to Washington, Chicago, and London. The exhibition, organized by the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), showcases Korean art from the Three Kingdoms period to the present, and has been widely covered by outlets like The Washington Post, CNN, and Forbes.
This exhibition matters because it marks a pivotal moment for Korean art's global expansion, following the success of K-pop, K-drama, and K-movie. The collection's economic impact in Korea was significant—generating an estimated 246.8 billion won in production effects—and helped narrow regional cultural gaps by distributing works to museums in cities like Gwangju and Daegu. Experts predict the collection could spark a seismic shift in the global art market, similar to how Japanese woodblock prints influenced Impressionism, and it contributed to Seoul hosting Frieze in 2022 and the domestic art market surpassing 1 trillion won.