Ja Won Lee

Ja Won Lee is Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art at California State University, East Bay. She is an art historian specializing in the visual and material culture of Korea, with research interests in collecting, gender, antiquarianism, and cross-cultural exchange between Asia and the West. Her research examines how collecting practices shaped identity and artistic production in late Chosŏn Korea and has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia University’s Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Her recent publications include “Visualizing ‘National Art’: O Sech’ang’s (1864–1953) Art Collection and Connoisseurship against Japanese Colonialism,” The Art Bulletin 105, no. 4 (2023): 116–133; and “Collecting Culture, Representing the Self: Chosŏn Portraits of Collectors of Chinese Antiquities,” The Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 31, no. 1 (2018): 1–20. Trained in ink painting, calligraphy, and art history, Lee received her PhD from UCLA and has taught at Columbia University, UCLA, and the University of Hong Kong. She has also worked on exhibitions and conservation projects at major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frankfurt Museum for Applied Art, and Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art.