Hong Kong Museum of Art

Hong Kong Museum of Art Review

An extensive collection of Chinese art is packed inside this boxy tiled building on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront in Kowloon. The collections here contain a heady mix of things that make Hong Kong what it is: Qing ceramics, 2,000-year-old calligraphic scrolls, kooky contemporary canvases. Thankfully it's organized into thematic galleries with clear, if uninspired, explanations. Hong Kong's biggest visiting exhibitions are usually held here too. The museum is a few minutes' walk from either the Star Ferry or Tsim Sha Tsui MTR stop.

Highlights

The Chinese Antiquities Gallery is the place to head if Ming's your thing. A series of low-lit rooms on the third floor houses ceramics from Neolithic times through the Qing dynasty. Unusually, they're displayed by motif rather than by period: dragons, phoenixes, lotus flowers, and bats are some of the auspicious designs. Bronzes, jade, lacquerware, textiles, enamel, and glassware complete this collection of decorative art.

In the Chinese Fine Art Gallery you get a great introduction to Chinese brush painting, often difficult for the Western eye to appreciate. Landscape paintings from the 20th-century Guangdong and Lingnan schools form the bulk of the collection, and modern calligraphy also gets a nod.

The Contemporary Hong Kong Art Gallery showcases a mix of traditional Chinese and western techniques—often in the same work. Paintings account for most of the pieces from the first half of the 20th century, when local artists used the traditional mediums of brush and ink in innovative ways. Western techniques dominate later work, the result of Hong Kong artists' having spent more time abroad.

Tips

Traditional Chinese landscape paintings are visual records of real or imagined journeys—a kind of travelogue. Pick a starting point and try to travel through the picture, imagining the journey the artist is trying to convey.There are educational rooms tucked away on the eastern side of every floor. Kids can emboss traditional motifs on paper or do brass rubbings; there are also free gallery worksheets in English. A good selection of reference books makes them useful learning centers for adults, too.Guided tours can help you to understand art forms you're not familiar with. There are general museum tours in English Tuesday through Sunday at 11 am. Check the Web site for the schedule of more detailed visits to specific galleries—they change every month.If you prefer to tour alone, consider an English-language audio guide: it's informative, if a little dry, and it costs only HK$10.