Soraya Ahn’s Leadership Gift to LACMA Honors Young-Il Ahn’s Legacy

Soraya Ahn, widow of Korean American artist Young-Il Ahn, made a leadership gift to the LACMA Fund after seeing her late husband’s painting Water S-397 (1997) installed in the new David Geffen Galleries. The painting belongs to Ahn’s Water series, which was the focus of LACMA’s 2016 exhibition Unexpected Light: Works by Young-Il Ahn—the museum’s first solo show by a Korean American artist. Inspired by the Geffen Galleries’ groundbreaking design by architect Peter Zumthor and a talk by LACMA director Michael Govan, Soraya Ahn hopes her gift encourages broader community participation. She emphasized that Young-Il, an immigrant who loved California, would have been moved by the honor and the building’s humanistic approach. The Water series originated from Ahn’s experience lost at sea in fog, capturing the shifting appearance of water. Soraya Ahn expressed joy in sharing his work, especially with younger Korean Americans discovering his name for the first time.