Hong Kong Museum of Art Reopens After Four Years

The Hong Kong Museum of Art reopened on 30 November 2019 after an expansion and renovation that had kept it closed since August 2015. The museum stands on the waterfront at Tsim Sha Tsui, beside the Cultural Centre and the Space Museum, facing the skyline of Hong Kong Island.

The building

The museum was founded in 1962 and moved to its present site in 1991, into a windowless building clad in pink tiles that turned its back on one of the great urban views of the world. The renovation corrected this. The tiles were replaced by a facade of grey patterned panels and glass. A new wing was added on the harbour side, and a new gallery was built on the roof, with a ceiling nine metres high. The lobby and several galleries now look out to the water through full-height glazing.

The number of galleries rose from seven to twelve, and exhibition space from about 7,000 to 10,000 square metres.

The collection

The museum holds more than 17,000 objects in four main groups: Chinese painting and calligraphy, including the Xubaizhai collection given by the collector Low Chuck-tiew; Chinese antiquities, with ceramics, jade and bronzes; China trade art, the paintings and prints of Canton, Macau and Hong Kong made for Western merchants in the 18th and 19th centuries; and modern and Hong Kong art. It also has the largest public holding of the painter Wu Guanzhong, whose family gave the museum several hundred works.

Eleven exhibitions marked the reopening. “From Dung Basket to Dining Cart” celebrated the centenary of Wu Guanzhong’s birth with more than a hundred paintings. “Ordinary to Extraordinary” told the story of the museum through its collections. “Hong Kong Experience, Hong Kong Experiment” surveyed the city’s art since the mid-20th century. A loan exhibition of British landscape painting from Tate, with works by Turner and Constable, was the first of a series of international partnerships.

Its place today

The reopening was the first of several that changed the cultural standing of the city within three years. M+ opened in 2021 and the Hong Kong Palace Museum in 2022, both a short distance along the same shore in West Kowloon. Beside those larger institutions the Museum of Art is the place for Chinese painting, for the art of the China trade and for the history of art in Hong Kong itself.

Visiting

The museum is five minutes on foot from the Star Ferry pier and from Rosewood Hong Kong. Entry to the permanent galleries is free; special exhibitions carry a small charge. It is closed on Thursdays.