Merck Korea unveiled its 2013 calendar featuring South Korean art on Monday.

The Korean affiliate of the German-based chemical and pharmaceutical company has been making calendars featuring artworks by a local artist every year since 2009.

Next year’s calendar features paintings by artist Kim Ji-hye, who gained prominence through her reconstructive work combining today’s sensibility and aesthetic sense with the traditional way of painting that was commonly seen in the Joseon Dynasty. 

“Both innovation and tradition is found in her painting, which we, as a company, wanted to send as a message this year in the calendar,” said Merck Korea CEO Juergen Koenig at the press conference on Monday.

“We hope many more people will get a better understanding of Korean artists and their artwork through a calendar as we always see it during our everyday activity. It will help in the course of development of local culture and art,” he said.

Distributing Korean art calendars every year is one of the company’s Creating Shared Value activities. Other CSV activities of the firm include the Merck Award given out to outstanding scientific contributions in display technology, Merck Young Scientist Award for Bioscience and scholarships for Seoul National University College of Medicine.

“It is meaningful that there is a company that supports Korean artists once every year. It is very encouraging for an artist,” said Kim.

By Park Min-young  (claire@heraldcorp.com)