How HKMoA became Hong Kong’s first public art gallery with a private donation
Sir Catchick Paul Chater donated his private art collection to the City Hall Art Gallery & Museum – now the Hong Kong Museum of Art – shaping the city’s art scene
Hong Kong’s cluster of newly built world-class galleries and museums in West Kowloon offer an ever-enticing series of exhibitions to attract local art lovers and visitors from around the globe. Somewhat overlooked amid all of the current activity and excitement, however, is the seminal role played by the Hong Kong institution that got the ball rolling, and the generosity of a distinguished philanthropist who wanted to give back to the community.
When it opened in 1962, City Hall Art Gallery & Museum, which later became the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA), was located in the top three floors of the “high block” in Edinburgh Place in Central. As the city’s first public art museum, it made a point of featuring prints, drawings and ink painting by local artists, as well as occasional shows of works by Hong Kong schoolchildren.
In the early days, though, the star attraction was undoubtedly the Chater Collection, the result of a bequest by legendary local businessman Sir Catchick Paul Chater, who is elsewhere commemorated in the names of various streets and buildings around town.
“Unfortunately, some works fell victim to the hazards of war, and only 94 pieces are known to have survived,” says Dr Maria Mok Kar-wing, director of HKMoA, who has written about the history and importance of the collection. “What remain, though, are oil paintings, watercolours, sketches, prints and photographs, most of which are based on landscape scenes of the South China trade ports in the 18th and 19th centuries, or on British activities in China.”