ABSTRACT
Interest in Korean art continued into the 1920s and 1930s. By then, almost every public collection of East Asian art in America and Europe had a Korean display. At this time acquisitions were no longer exclusively focused on Koryŏ ceramics, though they constituted the mainstay of collections. Bronze artefacts and Buddhist works of art from the Koryŏ kingdom were also collected alongside objects from other Korean dynastic periods. Curators now had access to an increasing number of articles and catalogues on Korean art published in English and other languages. Still, most writings continued to centre on Koryŏ ceramic manufacture. In contrast to those published ten or fifteen years earlier, articles were well-researched and offered reliable information. Several authors cited books published by the Government-General of Korea in Seoul, signifying the widespread impact of Japanese colonial cultural hegemony. In Korea, a small but growing number of collectors actively contested the Japanese control over Korean culture by acquiring local antiques and displaying them in public spaces. Chǒn Hyǒng-p’il was the most active in this regard.
