Beth McKillop, the curator and scholar who transformed the understanding of Korean art in Britain, has died of metastatic breast cancer aged 72. Long before Korean culture achieved global prominence, she argued that Korean artistic traditions deserved attention in their own right, not as a footnote to China or Japan.
First permanent Korean gallery in the UK
Her greatest achievement came between 1990 and 1993, when she was seconded from the British Library to the Victoria & Albert Museum as Samsung curator of Korean art. She established the UK's first permanent museum gallery dedicated to Korean art and expanded the V&A's Korean holdings by more than 120 objects, both historical and contemporary.
These included a celadon vase (1990) by Shin Sang-ho, which exemplifies the dialogue between tradition and innovation. As McKillop noted, "the vase pays homage to the Koryŏ tradition with its spreading rim, small loops at the shoulders, and delicately inlaid pair of white and black cranes in flight," yet diverges with its angular body. "The trunk of a pine tree seems to grow out of one of the edge lines that divide the bottle into irregular facets, and its leaves trail into the lines of the glaze crackle."
Early life and education
Born in Glasgow on 28 May 1953, Beth was the eldest of four children of Mary (née Chalmers), a teacher, and Norman McConochie, a quantity surveyor. She attended Glasgow High School, skipping a year, before joining Laurel Bank School. At 16 she entered the University of Glasgow, earning a humanities degree, then continued at Churchill College, Cambridge, for a second degree in Chinese studies, among the first cohort of women admitted to the college.
After graduating in 1975, she was selected by the British Council for an academic exchange in China, studying at a language institute in Beijing and then at Peking University during the final years of the Cultural Revolution. She later recalled participating in wheat harvests, transplanting rice seedlings, and helping assemble railway engines alongside fellow students.
Career at the British Library and V&A
She joined the British Library in 1981, working as a research assistant and later curator of Chinese and Korean collections. Her interest in Korea began almost by accident while working in the Chinese section. Recognising that the Korean collections lacked specialist expertise, she studied Korean at the School of Oriental and African Studies under William Skillend, one of the founders of Korean studies in Britain.
Among her key projects was the library's collection of manuscripts from Dunhuang, acquired by Aurel Stein. Collaborating with Chinese scholars and conservators, she helped make thousands of rare manuscript fragments more accessible through cataloguing, conservation, and publication. She also worked with Japanese scholar Yukio Fujimoto on the first detailed catalogue of the library's early Korean books.
North Korea and later work
Following diplomatic relations between Britain and North Korea in 2000, McKillop joined delegations to the country in 2001 and 2002, resulting in the book North Korean Culture and Society (2004), co-written with Jane Portal. She observed that North Korea reminded her of China during the Cultural Revolution, recalling dinners in vast, sparsely occupied halls where damp tablecloths were used to remove creases before official banquets.
In 2004 she returned to the V&A as keeper of Asia, overseeing major projects including China Design Now (2008) and the Robert H N Ho Family Foundation Galleries of Buddhist Art. She later became director of collections and deputy director of the V&A.
Retirement and legacy
Even after retiring from executive leadership in 2016, she remained an active scholar. Her final major publication, co-written with Portal, was Precious Beyond Measure: A History of Korean Ceramics (2024). She also served as president of the Oriental Ceramic Society from 2018 to 2021 and was a trustee of National Museums Scotland and the Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art. In 2025, she brokered the foundation's Chinese ceramics collection into the custodianship of the British Museum. The museum's director, Nicholas Cullinan, described it as "the greatest gift to any museum in the modern era."
In 1973 she married Andy McKillop, a publishing director who later became a gardener and artist. He survives her, along with their daughter, Lucy, son, Joe, and a grandson, Sam.
