As Hong Kong’s M+ museum opens, gallery owners reflect on changes in the city’s art scene since they opened 20 years ago

Since Katie de Tilly and Henry Auyeung opened 10 Chancery Lane Gallery and Grotto Fine Art in 2001, Hong Kong artists’ work has evolved, as has the art market

One change came via the national security law, which led Hong Kong artists to self-censor, De Tilly says. Meanwhile, Auyeung stopped working with some artists

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Katie de Tilly at her 10 Chancery Lane Gallery in Central, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 12:15pm, 11 Nov 2021Updated: 8:19am, 12 Nov 2021

In 2001, Katie de Tilly opened an art gallery in an alleyway abutting the grim walls of Victoria Prison in Hong Kong’s Central district.

She started out introducing mainland Chinese artists such as Wang Keping to mostly Western expatriate collectors. Today her gallery, 10 Chancery Lane, has become a mainstay of the city’s art scene with a formidable roster of artists from Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Australia and beyond.

The same year, Henry Auyeung and his wife, Jennifer Ho (then his girlfriend), opened Grotto Fine Art to show exclusively the works of Hong Kong contemporary artists. There wasn’t a great deal of demand for Hong Kong art back then, and so a small space in an office building in Central sufficed.

With the two galleries celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, their owners recalled for the Post the enormous changes that have taken place in the Hong Kong art scene as it prepares for further change with the opening of the M+ museum in West Kowloon, which will bring more opportunities for Hong Kong artists to have their work exhibited.

Henry Auyeung at Grotto Fine Art in Shau Kei Wan. Photo: Winson Wong

De Tilly remembers well the scene’s heady early days. “Hong Kong was an exciting place to be in the ’90s, it was so different, the art scene was just starting to happen,” she recalls.