Hong Ra-hee, honorary director of Leeum Museum of Art, receives Order of Civil Merit, Dongbaek Medal

[Financial News] Hong Ra-hee, honorary director of Leeum Museum of Art, received the Order of Civil Merit, Dongbaek Medal, in recognition of more than 40 years of charitable work in culture, health care and welfare.
According to the Samsung Foundation of Culture, Hong, the honorary director, received the Order of Civil Merit on the 26th, following the Red Cross Order of Humanity, Gold Medal, in 2024. The government awards the Order of Civil Merit to people whose contributions to improving public welfare and advancing national development are outstanding. The Dongbaek Medal is the third of the order’s five grades.
Hong became director of the Ho-Am Art Museum in 1995 and has supported the opening of Korean galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States, the British Museum and the Musée Guimet in France.
In 2021, the family, including Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, donated more than 23,000 cultural heritage items and artworks to the state in the family’s joint names collected by the late former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee. The donation included works representing Korean art, such as Jeong Seon’s “Inwangjesaekdo.”
At the time, 21,693 items were donated to the National Museum of Korea and 1,488 to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The donations to the latter encompass modern and contemporary Korean art, including works by Kim Whanki, Park Su-geun and Lee Jung-seob, as well as Western art, including works by Claude Monet and Marc Chagall. It was the first time the museum had received more than 1,000 works at once.
A special overseas touring exhibition of the donated works began last November at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., and is continuing at the Art Institute of Chicago and the British Museum.
Hong attended gala receptions for the touring exhibition hosted by Samsung at the Smithsonian and the British Museum. Alongside Chairman Lee and other family members, Hong took part in efforts to promote Korean art, meeting prominent figures in the United States and the United Kingdom.
In health care, the family donated 1 trillion won from the former chairman’s estate. Of that amount, 300 billion won was used to support children with cancer and rare diseases, and the Seoul National University Hospital Pediatric Cancer and Rare Disease Support Project Team was launched with medical staff and researchers from major hospitals across the country taking part.
The remaining 700 billion won was donated to help establish an infectious disease response system, including the construction of the National Medical Center’s Central Infectious Disease Hospital and the development of research and treatment infrastructure.
Hong has also made personal donations. In 2016, Hong joined the Korean Red Cross’s Red Cross Honors Club, a group for high-value donors whose cumulative contributions total at least 100 million won, as its third founding member. Last year, Hong was inducted into the Red Cross Honors 1 Billion Won Club.
Hong also supported children, young people and vulnerable members of local communities, donating 1 billion won to the Youth Happiness Foundation and 355 million won to the Yongsan Welfare Foundation. Hong continues to donate to help preserve traditional Buddhist culture and support cultural heritage preservation and assistance programs for vulnerable groups run by religious communities, including Won Buddhism and Catholicism.
[email protected] Jang In-seo Reporter