To promote stamp collecting and to spread the stamp culture, Korea Post has annually designated a "philately week" and held Stamp Exhibition during that week. This year, the 2012 Korea Philatelic Exhibition is held from August 9 to 13, 2012. The Exhibition will display 300 stamp exhibits, together with distinctive stamps from around the world such as the world's first stamp, three-dimensional stamps, cork stamps, silver stamps, etc. Children visitors can participate in "I am a stamp designer, too!" program, wherein they can, in person, design a stamp together with stamp designers.
This year's Philately Week Special Stamps feature 3 Western paintings and 1 Korean painting among the excellent works of Korea's modern paintings. "The Back Alley", work by SEO Dong Jin, regarded as having played a crucial role in the establishment of the modern watercolor, shows the city as a clean water painting; "Namhyangjip" (a house facing south), the work by OH Ji Ho who launched impressionism in a uniquely Korean manner, where the warm spring light fills the canvas; "Tugye" (cockfighting), the work by LEE Joong Seop shows strongly and with tension in an expressionistic way, a fight between two cocks; and "Chodong" (early winter), the work by LEE Sang Beom, that shows both the departure from conceptual landscape painting to a more realistic landscape style, as well as the strong lyricism about the country landscape.
