South Korea's most prominent museum director is stepping down after a humiliating authentication scandal. You Hong-june, who led the National Museum of Korea for about 15 months, offered his resignation on October 21 after it emerged that a calligraphy work from his own private collection — displayed in the museum's special exhibition as the work of an independence activist — was in fact by a man designated by the government as a pro-Japanese collaborator.

The piece, titled "One Meal Is the Nation's Grace," was shown in "The Korean Table: Food, Nature, and Life," on view through October 25, and attributed to independence activist Park Won-geun. Doubts surfaced over the inscription, and the work was pulled in August; it was later confirmed to be by Park Jung-yang. Criticism intensified when it emerged that You, a noted calligraphy-history specialist, had authenticated the piece himself — meaning it appears to have bypassed the verification process normally required for third-party loans.

Lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties grilled You during a parliamentary audit on October 19, where he apologized twice. In his resignation statement he said the trust the public placed in the museum had been "shattered in an instant" by his personal mistake, apologized to the public, the descendants of independence fighters and museum staff, and said stepping down was the right move to restore the institution's damaged reputation. He added that he hoped the controversy would not overshadow the researchers who prepared the exhibition.

The episode raises uncomfortable questions about the museum's verification procedures and the conflict of interest in exhibiting a director's own holdings. It follows years in which the museum has been trying to position itself as a world-class institution — and leaves the Culture Ministry searching for a successor at a moment of maximum scrutiny.