THOUGHTS ON THE COLLECTION
 

I have been collecting the photography of East Asia for more than 25 years, and the comparative scarcity of early Korean images has always been apparent to me. When writing Korea Caught In Time in 1997, I estimated that for every 500 Japanese photographs from the 1880s, one would expect to come across just one Korean print. On reflection, I think I was being too generous and should have more realistically assigned a ratio of 1000: 1. My previous estimate would more aptly apply to the 1890s. As for the 1860s and 1870s, Korean photography is reduced to no more than a handful of extant images. Why is Korean photography so rare? The answer lies in the country’s history.

Known as The Hermit Kingdom, Korea was one of the last countries on the planet to open its borders. The Japanese were the first to force a commercial treaty through in 1876, and the United States became the first Western nation to do so in 1882. Prior to these events, Korea’s over-riding national policy had been to prohibit all but essential contact with the outside world. Western ships that approached her shores were refused supplies and told to leave. Force was used if necessary.

In an attempt to open commercial relations and also investigate the earlier sinking of an American ship, an United States expeditionary naval force was sent to Korea in 1871. When the negotiations broke down, the fighting commenced. Fortunately for us, Felix Beato had managed to join the expedition as photographer and he put together a portfolio of approximately 40 images of the conflict. These are of the utmost rarity and until recently were considered to be the first photographs taken on Korean soil. Two albums of the conflict are contained in the collection; so far I have only managed to locate one other and this is with the Library of Congress.

The collection also has a stereoview of Koreans taken in 1874, and although this appears to be the first photograph to include Korean females, the image is actually of a Korean expatriate community in Vladivostok. The next key event was the 1876 treaty with Japan and the collection includes four wonderful hand-coloured portraits of the Korean ambassadors taken in Tokyo.

After 1882, foreign envoys began to arrive and legations were set up in the capital, Seoul. Merchants also arrived and lived in the treaty ports. Some, but not many, photographs have survived from the 1880s. It has to be remembered that, unlike Japan, Korea was not thought to be a particularly attractive location for trade – and certainly not tourism. In contrast, by the mid-1880s, numerous foreign tourists to Japan were taking well-trodden paths inside the country and bringing back photographs that were freely available from the many commercial studios then in operation.

From the 1880s, through until the 1950s, Korea has been ravaged by wars and rebellions – events that are not conducive to the preservation of photography. By the 1890s the country’s independence was increasingly in doubt. Growing Japanese influence was beginning to dictate Court politics. The 1894/95 Sino-Japanese War was fought, largely, on Korean soil. Queen Min was assassinated by Japanese in 1895. Much of the 1904/05 Russo-Japanese War was also fought on Korean soil and this only served to demonstrate the country’s impotence. The Japanese, who were the overwhelming victors in both conflicts, forced the abdication of the Korean King in 1907. When the Japanese Resident-General, Ito Hirobumi was assassinated by a Korean patriot in 1908 the Japanese needed no further excuse. She annexed Korea in 1910 and the country would lose its independence until the end of World War II in 1945. During this colonial period, Korean culture was suppressed. Independence, enjoyed by Korea after the surrender of the Japanese, was at the cost of partition. What followed was the utter devastation of the Korean War. Given these events, it is hardly surprising that so little early photography of Korea remains. Indeed, it is hard to believe that South Korea is today the world’s 11th largest economy. That in itself is a testament to the resilience, the work-ethic and national patriotism of the Korean people.

What other collections of Korean photography exist? In England there is the privately held Hillier collection which was put together by the British Ambassador and amateur photographer Walter Hillier during his term of office in Seoul, 1889-96. Kawasaki City Museum, Japan, has an album of the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War, that contains scenes inside Korea. But any other holdings of Korean photographs in Japan are few, small and scattered. Neither do American and European institutions seem to have very much. Disappointingly, there is also very little in Korea. The National Museum in Seoul has a large collection of glass plates from the 1920s – 1950s and Yonsei University has a small collection of earlier prints, and a larger collection of copy photographs. The National Folk Museum has a number of vintage photographs, but most of these appear to be taken after 1910.

In Korea the first photography museum (Han-mi Photo Museum) opened in 2004. The collection, study and preservation of photographic material are at an early stage. Korean history, particularly from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, is full of colour and incident. It has been said that the most important form of documentation for any country lies in the richness of its photographic heritage. Judging by the content of world-wide photographic auction catalogues, all nineteenth-century photography seems to be rapidly disappearing. With that in mind, a collection which documents the pictorial history of a country needs to be appreciated, preserved and studied – and made available to scholars and researchers and anyone else with an interest in the history and culture of Korea.

Terry Bennett
London,
May 2010