By Chung Ah-young
Staff reporter
Cultural relics represent a nation's rise and fall. Countries whose relics were looted in the past have tried to reclaim them to restore their cultural identity. Korea was one such country that suffered cultural pillage during the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945).
Jeon Hyeong-pil (1906-1962), the founder of the Kangsong Art Museum in Seoul, was an individual collector who devoted his life and fortune to buy the nation's antiques back.
His contribution to the preservation of national treasures is revisited in a new book "Kansong Jeon Hyeong-pil" written by Lee Chung-ryeol. The author researched documents related to Jeon for 10 years and earned his family's approval to publish the first biographical book on him.
Every spring and fall, hundreds of thousand visitors do not mind waiting for hours to see the rare antique exhibition at the museum nestled in a tranquil neighborhood in Seongbuk-dong, central Seoul. The museum is home to a number of rare National Treasures ― from old paintings to Buddhist sculptures ― all collected by Jeon.
The Kansong Art Museum was the first modern private museum opened in Korea in 1938, in the middle of the colonial period. The museum was named after the penname of its founder, which means a "pine tree standing in the clean streams."