The Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts, US, has reopened the Yu Kil-Chun Gallery of Korean Art and Culture.
The gallery, receiving visitors since Saturday, is named after Yu Kil-chun, a reformist leader and diplomat who met Edward Sylvester Morse, the PEM executive director, while on Korea’s delegation to the US in 1883. Their ties led to the US museum keeping a rich Korean collection, according to the National Museum of Korea, which had supported the reopening.
The gallery displays over 100 items, spanning everyday items and contemporary artworks from the 19th to 21st century.
Objects of significance include traditional chairs Korea showcased at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and a Western top hat made of Korean horse tail that was gifted to the museum by Percival Lawrence Lowell. Lowell was a US entrepreneur who authored “The Land of the Morning Calm: A Sketch of Korea” after extensively traveling throughout Korea in the 19th century.
Also featured are Korean artifacts donated to the museum by the family of Edwin V. Morgan, the US deputy consul general of Korea in 1905. Among the artifacts is a family photograph of Lee Beom-jin, the minister at the Old Korean Legation whom Morgan had befriended.
Works by contemporary Korean artists including Paik Nam-june, a pioneer of video art, are on display, according to the Peabody Essex Museum, which added that Korean communities in Massachusetts had contributed toward the latest expansion.
siyoungchoi@heraldcorp.com
