South Korean Court Orders Return of Three Works in Wooyang Museum Dispute
A Seoul court has ordered the Wooyang Museum of Art in Gyeongju to return three artworks to Jeong Hee-ja, narrowing a sprawling ownership fight that has shadowed one of South Korea’s best-known private museum collections. The ruling covers two monumental works by Nam June Paik from his 1989–91 “My Faust” series and one work by Sigmar Polke. For the remaining 185 disputed works, the court said the evidence was not sufficient to establish Jeong’s claim.
Jeong, a hotelier, founded the Art Sonje Museum in Gyeongju in 1991 and later established the Art Sonje Center in Seoul in 1998, which still operates under that name. The Gyeongju museum was originally run by Daewoo Development, a company controlled by her late husband, Kim Woo-chong, the founding chairman of Daewoo Group. In 2012, Daewoo Development was acquired at auction by Wooyang Industrial Development, which renamed the museum.
Jeong began seeking the return of the works in 2013, according to a report in the Chosun Daily. She said she had purchased the art with personal funds and loaned it to the museum on the understanding that it could be reclaimed at any time. Wooyang Industrial Development asked her to provide objective proof of ownership and later returned nine works to Jeong and her daughter before the case went to court.
Judge Kim Chang-mo said the three works should be returned based on evidence from the dealer who sold them to Jeong, testimony from a museum curator, and bank transfer records. By contrast, the court rejected Jeong’s reliance on a cataloguing system she used while directing the museum. She said the code “M” on record cards indicated ownership, but the curator testified that the same code was also used when an owner was unknown. The court concluded that the marks had been assigned arbitrarily in some cases and could not be tied conclusively to Jeong.
Wooyang Industrial Development has appealed in an effort to keep the Paik and Polke works. The dispute is only one part of a larger legal battle between the company and the family behind the dissolved Daewoo Group, underscoring how fragile provenance can become when private collecting, institutional memory, and corporate succession collide.
