National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Receives Donation of Over 12,900 Works by Baemansil, Gong Seonghun, and Kim Sanggu

Donation materials by printmaker Kim Sang-gu.

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) announced on the 18th that it has received a total of approximately 12,900 items of materials from craft artist Bae Mansil, painter Gong Seonghun, and printmaker Kim Sanggu, donated by their families and the artists themselves.

Since the opening of the Gwacheon Art Research Center in 2013 and the Seoul Digital Information Room in 2014, the MMCA has been continuously collecting, researching, and preserving key materials of modern and contemporary Korean art. The large-scale donations of materials from Bae Mansil, Gong Seonghun, and Kim Sanggu this year will be organized, cataloged, and described at the Art Research Center and Digital Information Room, and then made available to the public for viewing both the originals and the information.

Craft artist Bae Mansil (1923?2018) was a first-generation female designer and a pioneer of decorative arts in Korea. After graduating from Ewha Womans College in 1945, she studied abroad at the Philadelphia College of Art and Columbia University in the United States, then returned to Korea to establish the Department of Decorative Arts at Ewha Womans University and nurture future generations. She was actively involved in interior design, interior decoration, and textile arts. The donated materials include design education materials from the schools she attended during her studies abroad, newspapers and publications related to interior and fashion, interior design blueprints and drawings of public buildings such as the Gwanghwamun Government Complex, the Blue House, and broadcasting stations where she was responsible for interior design, as well as audiovisual materials and over 4,500 objects including vertical fans. The donation was decided by her family, and after research and investigation, some of the materials are scheduled to be exhibited in the second half of 2022 in an exhibition on the history of modern Korean design.

Painter Gong Seonghun (1965?2021) majored in Western painting at Seoul National University and its graduate school and graduated from Seoul National University of Science and Technology with a degree in electronic engineering. In the 1990s, he gained attention by presenting installation works and video works mainly using machines. Since 1998, he shifted to painting and produced landscape works that reveal facets of modern life. He received the MMCA’s “Artist of the Year Award” in 2013 and the “19th Lee Inseong Art Award” in 2018. He served as a professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Sungkyunkwan University, nurturing future artists. The donated materials, given by his family, consist of over 7,000 items including photographs and slide films related to his works, drawings, exhibition prints, and publications.

Printmaker Kim Sanggu graduated from the Department of Western Painting at Hongik University and its Graduate School of Education in 1967. After working as a middle school art teacher, he taught at several art universities including Hongik University and Sungshin Women’s University, nurturing future artists. Since participating in domestic and international exhibitions such as the Modern Printmakers Association Exhibition, Seoul International Print Exchange Exhibition, and S?o Paulo Biennale in the 1970s and 1980s, he has been actively working as a printmaker to this day. The donated materials consist of approximately 1,400 items including about 500 editions of the artist’s woodblock prints held in domestic and international museums such as the British Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, exhibition prints related to printmaking, audiovisual materials, documents related to the Korea Print Art Promotion Association and Print Biennale established to promote and popularize printmaking, and souvenirs made using woodblock prints.

Yun Beommo, director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, stated, “The MMCA has consistently strived to collect materials from modern and contemporary Korean artists and art historians,” and added, “We are grateful to the donors, and we expect that the important materials collected in the second half of this year will greatly contribute to research on modern design history and the history of modern Korean printmaking.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.