Hong Kong Museum of Art

The Hong Kong Museum of Art is one of the museums managed by the Leisure & Cultural Services Department. Established in 1962, it was first housed in the City Hall, moving to its present purpose-built premises by the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in 1991. The museum also has a branch, the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, located in Hong Kong Park.

It focuses on local and Chinese art collections, its collections now number in excess of 14,000 art objects contains some of the world's finest collections of ancient Chinese art from the Han to the Ming and Qing dynasties including Chinese painting, calligraphy. It houses few hundreds of oil paintings, drawings, etchings and lithographs of old Hong Kong. The highlights of the collections are on display in the exhibition galleries.

In 2004, the museum staged 14 exhibitions, comprising 10 special and four permanent exhibitions. Four special exhibitions were presented with renowned Chinese and overseas museums or artists, displaying significant works which reflected new directions in artistic creation.

A digital art exhibition jointly presented with the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong, combined real and virtual scenographies using new digital technologies. Another multi-media art exhibition was jointly organised with the Centre of Visual Culture of the China Academy of Art and the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute. It presented the results of an Asian cultural research study conducted by Chinese new media artists and researchers, which provided a new visual interpretation of cultures in Asia.

Other special exhibitions were also presented to celebrate the works of veteran Hong Kong masters. Two other exhibitions displayed the museum's precious collection of historical pictures, which depicted the scenery and life styles of the people in Hong Kong, Macao and other trading ports on the China coast over the past three centuries.

To enhance the public's knowledge of the museum's collection, permanent exhibitions are updated with new exhibits from time to time. The Chinese Antiquities Gallery presented a new exhibition while new Chinese paintings and calligraphy section displayed the works by Guangdong artists with four seasons as a special theme, featuring landscapes as well as flower-and-bird paintings on the unique Chinese format of sets of four hanging scrolls.

To stimulate the public's interest in art, the museum also organised a wide range of education and extension programmes, including video shows, art lectures, family programmes, art workshops and guided tours. During the year, the museum also took an active part in various major art extension programmes such as the International Museum Day 2004, the School Culture Day, the International Arts Carnival 2004 and the 2nd Asia-Pacific Art Education Conference, with the aim to realise the educational functions and mission of the Hong Kong Museum of Art to members of the public.