LACMA GIVEN 250 KOREAN MASTERWORKS.

Byline: Reed Johnson Staff Writer

Marking a dramatic expansion of its Korean holdings, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has acquired 250 masterworks from Los Angeles dealer and collector Robert W. Moore, officials announced Wednesday.

LACMA's president and director Andrea Rich described the gift as ``the finest, most significant and most comprehensive collection of Korean art outside of Asia.'' The Moore acquisition immediately places LACMA's Korean holdings among the foremost in the entire Western world, museum officials said.

About half the new works have been installed in LACMA's four new Korean art galleries, which open to the public today. The pieces range from an extremely rare fifth- or sixth-century gold crown, made for a member of one of the three dynastic families that dominated the Korean peninsula at the time, to Buddhist-inspired paintings, sculpture, scrolls, large screens, ceremonial weapons, metalwork, lacquer, cabinets, candle stands and the green-glazed wares commonly known as celadons.

Some galleries have been arranged to suggest the personal quarters of the scholars and administrators who rose to power during the Chosun dynasty (1392-1910). Additional works will be temporarily on loan from the National Museum of Korea.

The new galleries - the museum's first permanent installation of Korean art - represent part of a broader LACMA initiative aimed at strengthening its Korean art holdings and developing related cultural activities and programming.

Museum officials, conscious of Los Angeles' changing demographics and of the museum's mid-Wilshire location, on the edge of Koreatown, are seeking to expand LACMA's Korean-American audience while promoting Korean culture and scholarship and Asian art generally.

Owing to Korea's long history of invasion and its relatively small size compared to neighboring China, ``there simply is not that much Korean art around,'' said J. Keith Wilson, head of LACMA's Far Eastern Art department.

Moore, a Los Angeles native, said he began collecting Korean art in the 1960s when such works were relatively affordable. Later, he began dealing Asian art privately out of his home.

Long held in private collections, many of the works in LACMA's new galleries have never been shown publicly before. They were chosen by LACMA curators from Moore's much larger personal collections during a three-year period of study and review.

In conjunction with its acquisition, LACMA will host a Friday symposium on modern Korea and a family-oriented Festival of Korea from noon to 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

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Photo: ``Jar with Dragon and Clouds,'' from the 1700s