Dr Charlotte Horlyck

Charlotte Horlyck received her PhD from SOAS in 2006, and was appointed Lecturer in Korean Art History at SOAS in 2007. Before taking up this position, she curated the Korean collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (1998-2004). Her V&A projects include the curating of the exhibition The Art of Reflection: Mirrors, Messages and Magic (2002). She has held research positions at the Academy of Korean Studies (2006), Seoul National University (2010) and Ewha Woman’s University (2021). Dr Horlyck’s long-term commitment to the field is reflected in her scholarly activities and service to the profession. She chaired the SOAS Centre of Korean Studies from 2013-2017, and has served as President of the British Association of Korean Studies (BAKS) since 2016. She is also an elected member of the Committee of the Association of Korean Studies in Europe and has served on the grants committee of the Anglo-Korean Society. She is also Editorial Board Member of Misulsahak Yeonguhoe (Korean Society of Art History)

Dr Horlyck’s work focuses on Korean pre-modern and modern visual and material culture, collecting practices, and public displays of Korean art. Much of her work has centred on the Koryŏ [Goryeo] kingdom (AD918-1392), in particular the overlap between secular and mortuary uses of ceramics and metal wares.

More recently her research on Koryŏ archaeological material has led to explorations of how Koryŏ tomb objects were given new meanings and identities by early twentieth century collectors. Another research strand is that of modern and contemporary Korean art, where she addresses the cultural, social and political trajectories underpinning artists’ responses to a rapidly changing peninsula.

Her monograph Korean Art – From the 19th Century to the Present (Reaktion Books) was published in 2017 and was in 2020 translated into Korean under the title Han’guk misul 19segi hyǒnjae kachi (Seoul: Jae Sung Book Gold LtD). In 2021 the Korean translation was one of 330 volumes chosen out of 6467 Korean-language monographs for the annual Sejong Selection of Books. Her co-edited volume (with Michael Pettid, SUNY Binghamton) Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in Korea from Ancient to Contemporary Times (Hawai’i University Press, 2014) was selected for a Republic of Korea Ministry of Education Award (2015).

Dr Horlyck is currently working on a monograph on the collecting of Korean art in the late nineteenth and early century (Routledge, forthcoming). In 2021 it was one of fourteen publication projects selected for the KAMS (Korea Arts Management Service) Overseas Publication Support program.