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The American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein innocently made headlines in Korea a decade after his death when his work ¡°Happy Tears¡± appeared on a list of artworks that were allegedly bought by Samsung with money from corporate slush funds. The scandal, it seems, has sparked fresh interest among collectors.
Two Lichtenstein prints will go under the hammer at Seoul Auction today. One is ¡°Crying Girl," a similar image to ¡°Happy Tears¡± and valued at W40-50 million (US$1=W944). Shim Mi-sung, the general manager at Seoul Auction, said, ¡°We were delighted when we were asked to auction a Lichtenstein work similar to ¡®Happy Tears.¡¯ Many visitors to a preview showed interest in the item.¡± Galleries say they have run out of Lichtensteins.
Curator Kim Young-ae at the Gallery Opera in the hip Cheongdam-dong neighborhood, which specializes in trading overseas art, says, ¡°Most customers ask about the Lichtenstein and show an interest in his work. Lichtenstein has become a popular artist in Korea thanks to the Samsung slush fund scandal, because Korean collectors take the fame of artists prominently into consideration when they make a purchase.¡±
Another gallery in the same neighborhood, Emporia, said it sold two prints by Lichtenstein just a few days after former Samsung chief legal counsel Kim Yong-chul revealed a list of the conglomerate¡¯s art collection in late November.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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