MBK chairman to donate $10 mn to Metropolitan Museum

Michael ByungJu Kim, founder and chairman of MBK Partners, has pledged $10 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (the Met), the museum said on Tuesday. 

His donation will be used to renovate the museum's Oscar L. and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, which the Met has been seeking to revamp for more than a decade.

"In celebration of the outstanding gift, the Museum will name a gallery in the new wing the Michael B. Kim and Kyung Ah Park Gallery, after Mr. Kim and his wife Kyung Ah Park," it said in a press release.

His donation comes after the Met, founded in 1870, announced plans to fully reimagine its modern and contemporary galleries in November 2021. The project will create 80,000 square feet of galleries and public space. 

Kim's wife is the youngest daughter of the founder and the late Chairman Park Tae-joon of steel giant POSCO. 

Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO said in the press release: "... his exceptional generosity ... will contribute to a landmark next chapter for The Met’s presentation of the art of the 20th-century and beyond.”  

Mr. Kim has served as an Elective Trustee at The Met since 2017. He has a bachelor's from Haverford College in Philadelphia and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Write to Jun-Ho Cha at chacha@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article