Just a year ago, the heirs to the Samsung empire offered the South Korean state 23,000 works of art, including those by Gauguin, Dali, Picasso and Monet. Part of this impressive collection is on display at the National Museum of Korea.
With our correspondent in Seoul, Nicholas Rocca
A smell of tea to invite us into the house of the collector. This is how the exhibition begins, presenting 355 of the 23,000 pieces donated by the Samsung family to lighten their tax burden. With the death of its former leader Lee Kun-hee in 2020, the Samsung group must pay an impressive inheritance tax estimated at 9 billion euros.
” It was very symbolic for me as a curator to have access to such a vast collection and to be able to create a simple story with, says Lee Jae-hou, the curator of the exhibition. There were pieces from different eras, different genres and that’s what made the experience very pleasant. »
Among the masterpieces, numerous national treasures such as an ancestral bell, Buddhist works, including The cloud thinning at Mount Inwang after the rain. A mythical picture of a mountain that is just as much in the Korean imagination. But also more modern works, and for the first time in the country a painting from the series of water lilies by Claude Monet.
” We imagined the garden and the pond at Giverny as it was painted by Monet as being the back of the collector’s house, Explain Lee Jae-hou. And so, after visiting his house, we go into the garden. We also wanted visitors to listen to Debussy, a contemporary of Monet when they observe the painting.. »
A piece that does not fail to attract the Korean public. Online tickets are already sold out for the first month of an exhibition that will end next August.