Biographical note

Ch'oe Wan-su studied Korean History at Seoul National University (SNU). After finishing his degree at SNU in 1965, he worked as curator at the National Museum of Korea. Since 1966 he has been Chief Curator at the Kansong Art Museum in Seoul. He has taught graduate courses at various institutions, including Seoul National, Yeonse, Ehwa, Dongguk, and Chung'ang Universities. He has written articles and books on Buddhist art and Korean temples, Korean calligraphy, especially on the calligrapher Ch'usa Kim Chong-hi, and the true-view landscape paintings of Kyomjae Chong Son. Youngsook Pak studied at Ewha Woman's University in Seoul, and at the Universities of Bonn, Koln and Heidelberg in Germany, obtaining her PhD at Universitat Heidelberg in art history and sinology. She has organised exhibitions of Korean art in Ingelheim, Germany and in the British Museum. In 1989 she established courses on Korean art history in the Department of Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where she still teaches. She has written articles and books on ancient Korean art, Koguryo murals, Silla royal tombs, and Korean Buddhist art. Roderick Whitfield studied at SOAS and at St Johns College, Cambridge, and wrote his PhD on Song painting in Princeton University, returning in 1966 to St Johns College as Research Fellow and was appointed Assistant Keeper of Chinese art at the British Museum in 1968. In 1984 he was appointed Professor of Chinese and East Asian Art at SOAS and Head of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art. An international authority on Chinese painting and Buddhist art, he has written numerous articles and books. With Youngsook Pak, he organised the exhibition Treasures from Korea at the British Museum, and co-authored volumes in the series Handbook of Korean Art.