Mia Henderson

By Sue Yang, Editor-in-Chief
Tr. by Sung-Yoon Lee (Professor at Tuft University)

 

"Happy are those ages when the starry sky is the map of all possible paths - ages whose paths are illuminated by the light of the stars."  Thus begins The Theory of the Novel by the Hungarian philosopher and literary critic, Georg Lukacs (1885-1971).

  I invoked those words and sentiments on the morning that I set out to visit Maia von     Magnus Henderson's house in Medford.  It was early morning.  Snow was sweeping through every road and highway, and the wheels of my car kept spinning out of control.  In the snow-coated darkness of the early morning I was driving blindly ahead without a map to guide me. 

  Mrs. Henderson, known to her family and friends as Maia, died during the early morning hours of December 14, 2007.  To many of her Korean friends, she was better known as the widow of the late Gregory Henderson, a prominent Korea scholar and diplomat, who authored in 1968 Korea: The Politics of the Vortex (Harvard University Press), widely considered to this day the best single-volume study on Korean politics in the English language.  The Hendersons, art lovers and collectors, lived in Seoul from 1958 to 1963, when Mr. Henderson served as Cultural Attache  at the U.S. Embassy.  In Korea the Hendersons assembled what is now one of the West's premier private collections of Korean ceramics.

  Our modern world is one of disconnect.  Ours is a world in which miscommunication and incomprehensibility in everyday lives are willingly accommodated and often taken as the norm.  Existential solipsism underlies our rudderless modern world, which is particularly pronounced in the politics of the Korean peninsula.  Gregory Henderson in his book pointed to the egotistical and elitist currents of Korean politics, reinforced through the centuries. 

  And what about art?  Perhaps art, that the Hendersons so loved, can better articulate than words our inner lives in this chaotic world of egotistic existence. 
  In the shadow of the morning, the Hendersons' snowcapped mansion stood atop a hill in proper form and grandeur.  Inside, traces of an infirmed solitary life were visible.  Yet through and beyond the clothing and shoes donning the floor and the papers littering the hallway, glittered in the semi-darkness countless works of incomparable beauty.  Over on a corner of the library beckoned calligraphy in gold, written by Anpyong Taekun, the third son of King Sejong the Great, sometime around mid-1400s.  Anpyong Taekun-or Yi Yong-is regarded one of the very best calligraphers in all of Korean history.  Yet only few works of his remain, as the hapless prince was purged and his works burnt in the wake of his older brother, Suyang Taekun, seizing power.  As it turned out, a most rare treasure among treasures had hung for decades on the walls of Maia Henderson's library, unnoticed by most of her visitors. 

  Walking out of the library I found on the hallway wall a poem by Osan Cha Cheon Ro (1556-1615), a renowned scholar-poet of the mid-Chosun kingdom.  What more surprises lay ahead?  Overlooked upon entry, I went back to the entrance and gazed at two works by Chusa Kim Jeong Hui (1786-1856), another one of the very best calligraphers that Korea had produced.  On the dining room wall hung a personal scroll written for the Hendersons by former President Kim Dae Jung, "Kyeong Cheon Ae In" (Honor Heaven Love Humanity).  In the living room gleamed an old Taenghwa (Buddhist painting), lotus-themed tiles from the Three Kingdoms Period, centuries-old portraits and ceramics . . . my sole regret was that I lacked the faculty to recognize and appreciate every single item displayed throughout the house.

  Maia Henderson-surrounded by works of art, she had lived a life in intimate communion with art.  It seemed as if she had lived a life that had transcended her time and era and the cultural background in which she had naturally been embedded.  It seemed as if she had become herself a relic of the past and her house a veritable museum.  Her entire world it seemed to me a standard frame for assessing and interpreting works of art handed down to us through the ages.   The standard by which to measure Maia Henderson's collection to me was communion.  And in time I found myself cautiously participating in her intimate communion as I stood in her silent house admiring her collection.  Inserting myself into Maia's personal world and floating amid the spaces of time and history between her works of art, all I could do was but stand still and revel in my new mystical environment.

  Maria Christine Elisabeth von Magnus (full maiden name) was born into a prominent family in Berlin, Germany, in 1923.  She showed an early interest in the arts, actively involving herself in music, dance, and visual-art circles in her youth.  As a teenager, she danced in the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.  In her teens, she studied art at the Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin, majoring in sculpture, a medium for which she maintained a lifelong devotion.  In the early 1950s, she met Gregory Henderson (1922-1988), a Cambridge, MA-born, Harvard-educated (AB 1944, MBA 1947) U.S. Foreign Service Officer who was then stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.  In 1954 she traveled to Kyoto, Japan, on the freight ship Schwabenstein, where she married Gregory. 

  Moving with her husband to the Republic of Korea in 1958, Gregory and Maia lived in Seoul until 1963. While Gregory carried out his diplomatic duties, Maia worked as a sculptor and also taught at Seoul National University and at Hong'ik College (now Hong'ik University).  While living in Korea, Maia created a number of award-winning sculptures, the best known of which is her 1960 bronze series representing the Stations of the Cross for St. Benedict's Church in Hyehwa-dong, Seoul, one of the oldest Christian churches in South Korea.  Maia was also instrumental in arranging visits to the studios of prominent contemporary Korean artists for visiting members of the international art community.  In the United States, Maia's own work has been shown in New York City, Washington, D.C., and in the Greater Boston area.

  In Korea the Hendersons assembled a remarkable collection that spans the entire history of Korean ceramics from the first century A.D. through the nineteenth century.  Thanks to Maia's generosity, the Harvard University Art Museums acquired the collection late in 1991 and then featured it in a special exhibition First Under Heaven: The Henderson Collection of Korean Ceramics (12 December 1992 - 28 March 1993).  The collection previously was the focus of the 1969 ground-breaking exhibition and catalogue, Korean Ceramics: An Art's Variety, at Ohio State University, Columbus. Masterworks from the collection have been featured in exhibitions of Korean ceramics at The Asia Society (New York), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), as well as the Harvard University Art Museums.  In the years following Greg's death in 1988, Maia endowed the Gregory and Maria C. Henderson Fund at the Harvard University Art Museums to support research on Korean art. 

  In 2002 Mrs. Henderson donated four scrolls of calligraphy by the Korean national hero and statesman Kim Koo (1876-1949) to the then newly-established Kim Koo Museum and Library in Seoul; Kim Koo had written the scrolls for Gregory Henderson in 1949 (during Greg's first tour of duty in Korea, 1948-1950).  One of the scrolls features eight Chinese characters reading Han Mi Chin Sun Pyeong Deung Ho Jo, which can be translated "Korea-United States Friendship Equitable Cooperation."  That scroll was the very first item on display in the inaugural exhibition at the Kim Koo Museum and Library.  Maia attended the opening ceremonies on 22 October 2002, along with the President and First Lady of South Korea and many other distinguished guests.  Maia also gave the Kim family a bronze portrait bust representing Kim Koo's daughter-in-law that she had created in 1960; the sculpture is presently housed in the Kim Koo Museum and Library.

 

  Frugal and demanding with herself, Maia was generous to others, devotedly supporting the arts and encouraging artistic activities in all forms at numerous museums, universities, and societies.  Each year she would receive a substantial check from the Harvard University Art Museums, which she would without fail donate right back to Harvard.  Supporter of the Peabody Essex Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Medford Historical Society, The Chromatic Club of Boston, the New England Asian Art Society, etc., Maia Henderson's commitment to beauty and her devotion to nurture it in every way she could made her a veritable grande dame of the greater Boston's art scene.

  Maia Henderson left her entire estate to charity, leaving to her family and friends none of her collection or financial assets.  To her nieces in Germany and her friends in the Boston area she left only items of sentimental value like journals and photographs.   Departing a life rich in art and friends yet with no next of kin in the U.S., I imagined Maia's last days to have been lonely.  It seemed that the embodiment of a bygone era that was Maia Henderson had left this world virtually alone.  Yet her impressive collection will fall under the professional stewardship of museums and libraries and will enrich the lives of admirers for generations to come.  What Maia wished to communicate and inhabit was the future. 
Standing in the shadows of her empty house on a rocky hill, snow still falling outside and faintly descending through my immediate universe, I consoled myself in the knowledge that Maia Henderson's life of intimate communion with art shall live on through her generous philanthropy-her joyous reach for the starry skies¢Â