ART MUSEUM, THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong
tel: +(852) 2609 7416; fax: +852 2603 5366
e-mail: artmuseum@cuhk.edu.hk
internet: www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/amm/index.html


 • Selections from the Art Museum Collection, East-wing Galleries
Year-round

To coincide with the exhibition in the west-wing galleries, a variety of exhibits exemplifying the rich traditions of Chinese art and culture are on display. Paintings, calligraphy, ceramics, bronzes, jades, and lacquerwares from the Art Museum's permanent collection are featured.

 • The Art of Chinese Seals through the Ages
October 3, 1999 - July 5, 2000

 In ancient China, people used seals as evidence of promise, agreement or trust. In its long history of development, seals have been tools for exercising authority as well as art objects for appreciation. Five hundred seals will be on display in this exhibition jointly organized by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou and the Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Seals from the Warring States period (475-221BC) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) will be on display, ranging from official seals, private seals, pictographic seals, to signature seals and later literary seals. The great variety in shapes, materials and scripts demonstrates the evolution of the art of seal carving in China through two millennia. Seals, especially the archaic ones, have a high academic value because they provide first-hand information for the study of official hierarchy, history, geography, paleography, family pedigree, and tribal relationship. Besides, seals are also artistic objects that blend Chinese calligraphy, carving, and casting. To coincide with the exhibition, a fully illustrated catalogue will be published, and a three-day international symposium was held in March.


•The Art of Feng Kanghou: Calligraphy, Painting and Seal Carving
July 15 - September 3, 2000

Feng Kanghou (Fung Hong-hou, 1901 - 1983) was probably the most respected seal-carver and calligrapher in Hong Kong during the seventies and eighties. A native of Panyu county, Guangdong province, Feng was born in 1901 in Guangzhou. In his early twenties, he went to Beijing to work as a stage art designer for the famous Mandarin opera actor Mei Lanfang. Later, he served at the State Seal-casting Bureau in Beijing. In 1932 he ran a newspaper Zhongxing Bao in Hong Kong. During the Japanese invasion in Guangzhou, he fled to Macau. After his settlement in Hong Kong since 1945, Feng took up teaching posts of paleography and ancient scripts in several tertiary institutes. He founded the 'Nantian Society of Seals' in 1962 and the 'Guangya Society of Calligraphy' in 1967 to promote the art of seal carving and calligraphy, paintings, and seals at the City Hall organized by the Hong Kong Museum of Art in1980. He died in 1983.

As a competent seal carver he owed much to Liu Qingsong and Huang Shiling, but he was successful in integrating the elegance of the Han seals to set up a distinctive style of his own. He painted occasionally, but his paintings were always done in a fresh style. The University of Hong Kong Art Museum will stage an exhibition of selected works by Feng to coincide with the centennial anniversary of his birth in 1901. Preview of the exhibition will be held on July 14. Prof. Jao Tsung-I, Wei Lun Honorary Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, will officiate at the Opening Ceremony. All are welcome.












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