‘Sun, Moon and Five Peaks’ six-panel folding screen; ink and colour painting, Korea, Joseon dynasty, 1800s. Photo © National Museum of Korea.

This press release was originally published on the British Museum’s website.

A new exhibition at the British Museum will explore over two millennia of Korean art and culture, offering a fresh perspective on the peninsula’s rich creative history. Drawing on exceptional works from the collection of the late Samsung Chairman, Lee Kun-Hee, this will be the first major exhibition on Korea’s art and history at the British Museum in over 40 years.

Spanning from 300 BC to the present day, Korea reveals how the country’s artists and craftspeople have continually demonstrated creativity, resilience, and superb technical skill, while absorbing outside influences to create a distinctive and enduring cultural identity.

At a time when Korean culture has an unprecedented global presence, often described as the Korean Wave, or hallyu, this exhibition offers important context for understanding its deeper historical roots. Since the 1990s, the Korean Wave has driven the global popularity of South Korea’s cultural economy, exporting music, film, television and wider pop culture worldwide. By placing Korea’s rich artistic heritage in a broader historical perspective, the exhibition reveals continuities and connections that extend far beyond the present moment.

The exhibition will trace Korea’s artistic and cultural history chronologically, bringing together seminal works, many designated National Treasures, on loan from the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, alongside works from the British Museum. The objects on display are drawn from the recent donation of over 23,000 objects from Lee Kun-Hee’s collection to Korea’s national museums. This extraordinary gift has made possible a landmark exhibition that not only illuminates Korea’s artistic heritage but also reflects the longstanding dedication of one of its most important collectors.

The exhibition presents historic national treasures alongside modern and contemporary works, creating a dynamic conversation across time. From the technical mastery of Goryeo celadon, renowned for their luminous blue-green glaze and intricate inlay, to the restrained elegance of Joseon porcelain shaped by Confucian ideals, historic objects are recontextualised through their relationship with contemporary society. This approach reveals how artists across centuries have continually revisited and reinterpreted the past, sustaining a living tradition while pushing creative boundaries.

Among the highlights are bronze ritual implements dating to 300 –100 BC, and a 13th-century gourd-shaped celadon ewer, an exquisite example of Korea’s refinement in ceramic technology, alongside rare Buddhist paintings that embody both spiritual devotion and artistic sophistication. A masterpiece of landscape painting, Jeong Seon’s Clearing after the Rain on Mount Inwang evokes the restless spirit of Seoul’s Mount Inwang through rain-darkened ridgelines and drifting layers of mist. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who favoured idealised imaginary landscapes, Jeong Seon transformed Korean landscape painting by depicting a distinctly recognisable local landmark with emotional depth. The selection also includes a work by Nam June Paik, the visionary artist widely regarded as a pioneer of video art.

A new Museum acquisition by internationally acclaimed Do Ho Suh features as another key highlight, connecting themes of identity, migration and memory. Presented alongside historic objects, it underscores the exhibition’s central theme: the enduring dialogue between Korea’s past and present, and the ways in which cultural identity is continually redefined.

Korea is a story of progression and change, of adaptation and innovation. It offers a compelling insight into how creativity, technical skill, and cultural dynamism have defined Korean art and culture across time.

Sang-ah Kim, Curator of Korean collections, said: “By diving deep into the circumstances under which objects were made, this exhibition offers insight into makers and patrons across the centuries. A sutra inscribed by a deposed queen, an ink landscape of a mountain in Seoul, a painting of quasi-nude figures ambling through an imagined paradise, and sketches inscribed on cigarette foil: these images not only illuminate Korea’s history but also carry personal messages that resonate across time and cultures.”

Dr Nicholas Cullinan OBE, Director of the British Museum, said: “Over two thousand years, Korean art has developed through constant exchange, adaptation and reinvention. This exhibition brings together extraordinary works from across that long history, allowing visitors to see how ideas and forms have been reimagined across generations, and how a distinctive cultural identity has been continuously shaped in dialogue with the wider world to this very day.”

Dr You Hong-June, Director of National Museum of Korea, said: “The Lee Kun-Hee Collection’s international tour has achieved remarkable success in Washington DC and Chicago. Now at the British Museum, the exhibition presents a fresh narrative of Korea through a compelling selection featuring more National Treasures than the previous two venues. In the heart of London, visitors can discover the very roots of K-culture, which is enjoying worldwide popularity. I look forward to welcoming many K-culture fans from across the UK and Europe.”

Simon Sung, President and CEO of Samsung Electronics Europe, said: “Samsung is delighted to partner with the British Museum on this exhibition. Korean culture has never been more relevant than it is today, and this exhibition offers a powerful connection to the roots of Korea’s cultural heritage. It brings together a selection of the expansive artworks donated to Korea by the family of Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee, reflecting their enduring commitment to preserving and sharing Korea’s rich cultural legacy with the world.”

Korea will run from 01 October 2026 – 31 January 2027 in The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery at the British Museum. For more information and ticket access, please visit the Korea exhibition webpage: https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/korea

Together with long-standing partner the British Museum, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd has today released a series of online learning resources to inspire children and young people while they are at home due to the coronavirus pandemic and during the school holidays.

Available for free on the Samsung KX website – Samsung’s home of innovation – the Around the World in a Day resources showcase some of the world’s best architecture through a range of the British Museum’s historical objects.

Each of the five resources covers a different architectural theme – towers, stadiums, palaces, spiritual spaces and homes – which children and young people are getherfortomorrow, #enainvited to use as inspiration to make their own designs and creations using drawing apps, Minecraft or any other tool of their choosing. Creations can then also be brought to life using digital devices to take photos, videos, gifs or stop frame animations, and these can be shared on social media using #MuseumFromHome and tagging @SamsungUK.

The resources link particularly strongly with the Design & Technology Curriculum and the Art & Design Curriculum, providing both an educational and creative way to explore the Museum’s collections while its doors are closed.

Forming a part of Samsung’s new Stay Learning series, which offers a range of educational content created with its CSR Partners to support children and families during this time, the Around the World in a Day resources are available now for all to enjoy here:

• Towers – https://www.samsung.com/uk/explore/kings-cross/creativity/british-museum/1/

• Stadiums – https://www.samsung.com/uk/explore/kings-cross/creativity/british-museum/2/

• Palaces – https://www.samsung.com/uk/explore/kings-cross/creativity/british-museum/3/

• Spiritual Spaces – https://www.samsung.com/uk/explore/kings-cross/creativity/british-museum/4/

• Homes – https://www.samsung.com/uk/explore/kings-cross/creativity/british-museum/5/

Jessie Soohyun Park, Head of CSR at Samsung UK, said, ‘We’re proud to continue working with the British Museum to adapt and evolve how we offer educational experiences to children and young people during these unprecedented times. As part of Samsung’s global commitment to education, we hope these resources will inspire our next generation of creators to experiment with their digital creative skills.’

Sarah Saunders, Head of Learning and National Partnerships at the British Museum said, ‘This is a great opportunity for young people to be inspired by the British Museum’s amazing collection and Samsung’s spirit of design innovation to get creative with architecture. The Museum has many fascinating objects that relate to buildings from the famous colosseum in Rome to sacred shrines in India. We can’t wait for young people to share their unique architectural creations with us.’

Also announced today is that the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre welcomed a record number of visitors this year. 28,500 children and young people took part in a wide variety of digital activities such as workshops, family drop-ins, and facilitated school visits using the latest Samsung technology – the highest annual number since the Centre opened in 2009. It was a 14% increase on the previous year.

The Virtual Visits programme will enable schools that are unable to visit the Museum, to still experience the British Museum collection and access to staff via a learning session broadcast directly into their classroom. Following successful pilots, 35,000 places over the next five years will be available for pupils from across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take part and become virtual visitors.

Virtual Visits have been created with the curriculum needs of schools in mind and is designed around the realities of classroom technology. Sessions are offered on prehistory Britain, Roman Britain and the Indus Valley, and new sessions on ancient Egypt and ancient Greece are in development. Each class will have the session tailored to their needs and pupils can enjoy direct interaction with British Museum staff, as well as high resolution digital assets such as 3D digital objects being shared with students.

Samsung and the British Museum will also begin to develop an innovative and exciting new strand of programming for teenagers, which young people themselves will help shape. By working directly with teenagers, it will help develop quality programming that fully understands and meets their diverse needs, as well as enhance their experience of the museum’s collection through Samsung technology.

The SDDC provides a state-of-the-art technological hub for children and young people to learn about and interact with the British Museum’s collection through Samsung Technology. Ahead of the refit, the SDDC welcomed its highest ever number of visitors, with 25,000 school children and families using the Centre in 2018/19. Since it opened, 150,000 people have visited the space to take part in a wide variety of activities such as workshops, family drop-ins, and facilitated school visits. This major refit revealed today sees improvements to the user experience to cater for the growing number of visitors, as well as a full upgrade in the Samsung technology available. This will include the Samsung Flip, E-boards and the latest range of Galaxy Smartphones, tablets and smartwatches.

Over the past 10 years, the SDDC has provided the largest programme of digital learning activities in any UK museum. It continues to demonstrate the highest levels of audience satisfaction, with 95% of families surveyed in 2017–18 stating they found the sessions ‘good’ or ‘very good’, and that 96% of teachers said they would recommend the SDDC to a colleague and would bring a student group to the SDDC again. Thanks to Samsung’s support, expertise and technology, the SDDC schools and family programmes have transformed the Museum’s digital learning provision into a world class, sector leading and award-winning programme.

Francis Chun, President & CEO of Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland says: “At Samsung, under our global Corporate Citizenship vision of Enabling People and supporting education for future generations, we’re committed to empowering the next generation of innovators to discover and unlocking their full potential. Our collaboration with the British Museum for the past ten years has allowed us to constantly trial new technologies that engage children and young people in innovative ways to not only help them learn about lessons in history, but enable them to better understand the present and prepare for the future. By extending this long-standing partnership for a further five years to 2024, we stand beside the British Museum as we together navigate the ways in which emerging technologies can further enhance the way we learn.”

Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, says: “We are delighted that thanks to the generous support of Samsung, we can now offer 35,000 school children over the next five years the opportunity to interact with the world class collection and expertise of the British Museum, who ordinarily might not be able to. Pupils from Andover to Aberdeen and Brecon to Belfast can now experience some of the Museum’s incredible treasures from their own classroom, potentially sparking a lifelong curiosity in the history of the world. The advances in digital technology have enhanced the learning opportunities within – and now outside – the Museum, and the SDDC has been at the very forefront of our efforts to share the collection more widely. We are grateful for the longstanding and continued partnership with Samsung for making it possible.”

For more information about the British Museum Samsung Digital Design Centre: https://www.britishmuseum.org/learning/samsung_centre.aspx