Yi Song-mi is Professor Emerita of Art History at the Academy of Korean Studies. Previously, she served ad Dean of the Graduate School of Korean Studies at the Academy.
Prior to her tenure ate the Academy, she taught at Duksung Women's University in Seoul and also served as the Director of the University Museum there, She was a member of the National History Council of Korea and served as the President of Korean Art History Assciation.
Overseas she is member of the editorial board of Archives of Asian Art and of the Internaional Council of the Asia Society in New York.
Professor Yi was educated at Seoul National University (B.A.), the University of California at Berkeley (M.A.), and Princeton University where she receved a Ph.D. degree in Art History.
Her recent publications on Korean painting include Fragrance of Ink: Korean Literati Paintings of the Choson Dynasty (co-authored, Korean and English, 1996), Western influence on Korean Painting of the Choson Dynasty (in Korean, 2000) and Fragrance, Elegance, and Virtue: Korean Women in Tranditional Arts and Humanities (2002). An avid traveler, she wrote about her adventures in the Architectural Treasures of the World: A Personal Perspective (in Korean, 2002, revised ed., 2004).
Since the early 1990s, she has been conducting detailed research into the court documents of the Joseon dynasty known as "uigwe" (book of state rites). She published numerous articles (3 in English) and two monographs on this subject in Korean. Both of them, Royal Wedding Related Uigwes and Art History (2008) and Royal Portrait Related Uigwes and Art History (2012), won prestigious book awards in 2009 and 2012 respectively. She was also conferred a medal of the Order of Civil Merit in 2011 by the Korean Government in recognition for her contribution to the successful negotiation between the French and Korean governments for the return of the mostly uigwe books (mostly royal viewing copies) from France after 145years.
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