Samsung Billionaire To Receive Entire Museum For His 23,000 Work Art Collection
โ€” Updated on 30 January 2023

Samsung Billionaire To Receive Entire Museum For His 23,000 Work Art Collection

โ€” Updated on 30 January 2023
Garry Lu
WORDS BY
Garry Lu

When chairman of the Samsung Group โ€“ Lee Kun-hee โ€“ passed away last October at the age of 78, he left behind an impressive $27 billion fortune, as well as an equally-impressive 23,000-piece art collection. According to South Korean Minister of Culture, Sports, & Tourism โ€“ Hwang Hee โ€“ the latter will soon be housed within its very own museum (honouring the memory of Lee Kun-hee himself).

โ€œThere is a need to build a new art hall to better manage the donated art collection and study [it],โ€ Hwang announced at a press conference.

โ€œThe aim is to share the donatorโ€™s collection and his philosophy behind collecting the artwork with the wider public.โ€

The museum โ€“ which has tentatively been dubbed the Lee Kun-hee Donation Hall โ€“ has been allocated a โ‚ฉ100 billion (AU$117 million) budget. A sizable cost, no doubt, but exceedingly necessary when you consider the artwork collection itself is worth $3.6 billion. The top two candidates for its location are where the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan-gu and the National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art currently resides.

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As for whatโ€™s featured in the Lee Kun-hee art collection, headlining works include pieces from the likes of Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and plenty of other familiar names (hence why its worth a fortune).

Initially, Kun-heeโ€™s son Lee Jae-yong and widow Hong Ra-hee made an effort to donate the majority of the collected artworks across several state-owned institutions, with the intention to offset some of the โ‚ฉ12.5 trillion (AU$14.6 billion) inheritance tax bill theyโ€™d copped in the wake of their family patriarchโ€™s passing. By the sounds of Minister Hwang Heeโ€™s plans, however, it appears theyโ€™ve been overruled in favour of consolidation.

[The ministry] expects to strengthen Koreaโ€™s brand identity as a cultural powerhouse through the construction of the new establishment. We will do our best while communicating with the art scene and experts.โ€

According to ArtNet, artworks already distributed among regional museums will remain in place as per the donorsโ€™ wishes. Both the National Museum of Korea and the Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art are set to exhibit works from the Lee Collection later this month, while a traveling showcase is being planned for late 2022.

Lee Kun Hee Museum 23000 art collection

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Garry Lu
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After stretching his legs with companies such as The Motley Fool and the odd marketing agency, Garry joined Boss Hunting in 2019 as a fully-fledged Content Specialist. In 2021, he was promoted to News Editor. Garry proudly retains a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, black bruises from Muay Thai, as well as a black belt in all things pop culture. Drop him a line at [email protected]

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