When Hyunsoo Woo arrived in the United States in 1996, she was, in her words, ¡°fresh off the boat¡± from South Korea. And she noticed something right away.

¡°Korean art was nowhere to be found¡± in American museums, even encyclopedic ones, says Woo, now the deputy director for collections and exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. ¡°I was very puzzled by that.¡±

What a difference 27 years makes: This fall, there are at least five exhibitions of Korean art at major museums across the country.