Korea's auction houses gear up for major modern art sales amid rising public interest

By Park Han-sol

Amid the recent boom in local art fairs and the surge in public interest in art auctions ― fueled partially by the news of late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee's massive art donation ― Korea's key auction houses are gearing up for the last major art sales of the first half of the year, next week.

Seoul Auction's 161st sale, slated for June 22, made headlines earlier as the biggest single auction in Korea to be held since the 2008 global financial crisis. It will showcase 204 pieces with an estimated total value of 23 billion won ($20.3 million), followed by K Auction's sale the next day, with 154 works valued at some total 13.5 billion won ($11.9 million).

Notably, each auction house will offer a 1954 oil painting by renowned modern artist Lee Jung-seob ― “Family” valued at approximately 1.5 billion won on Seoul Auction, and “Fish, Pomegranate and Family,” valued between 650 million won and 1.5 billion won on K Auction.

The two art pieces capture the heavenly, ideal life Lee imagined as he yearned desperately to reunite with his wife and two sons in Japan, from whom he was separated in 1952 during the 1950-53 Korean War, and never ended up seeing again, tragically dying in 1956. As the artist passed away at the mere age of 40, not many of his original oil paintings have been brought under the gavel, making their simultaneous appearances at this year's leading art auctions a rare scene.

For both auction houses, pioneering master Kim Whan-ki's dot paintings, created during his stay in New York are expected to fetch the highest prices.

It was after he settled in New York in 1963 that Kim made the transition from depicting natural elements and East Asian cultural motifs to devoting himself to dot paintings, which became a key technique in his artistic repertoire.

K Auction will offer “4-XI-69 #132” (1969), estimated to be worth between 1.5 billion won and 1.8 billion won. It is considered to be one of the artist's earliest paintings of rhythmically reproduced dots, which he developed based on geometric abstraction. Seoul Auction will put up “27-XI-71 #211,” nicknamed “the rainbow dot painting,” which was created two years later in 1971, and is valued between 3 billion won and 4.5 billion won.

Other highlights of the sales include “A Kernel of Wheat” (1983), a rare surviving work of Korea's first-generation female Western-style painter, Baek Nam-soon, offered by K Auction, and video artist Paik Nam-june's “Tower” (2001), which will be showcased at Seoul Auction.