Early Korean Ceramics: the Gaya Confederacy February 4, 2010

While the Honolulu Academy of Arts is world-renowned for its collection of over five hundred Korean ceramics, it is less well known that more than twenty percent of the collection consists of early ceramics from the Three Kingdoms period. Of this, a disproportionately high number, nearly one-third, have been associated with the Gaya Confederacy. For the first time in the Academy's history, this exhibition will bring together all of the Gaya ceramics in the museum's collection, providing a comprehensive overview of this remarkable, yet poorly understood period, in Korea's history. The exhibition will also include a comparison of Gaya ceramics with ceramics from other parts of Korea, and from Japan, together with selected early Chinese artworks of the type that were imported into or influenced the Gaya region.