The visual art of Hong Kong, or Hong Kong art, refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with Hong Kong throughout its history and towards the present. The history of Hong Kong art is closely related to the broader history of Chinese art, alongside the art of Taiwan and Macau. Hong Kong art may include pottery and rock art from Hong Kong's prehistoric periods; calligraphy, Chinese ink painting, and pottery from its time under Imperial China; paintings from the New Ink Painting Movement and avant-garde art emerging during Hong Kong's colonial period; and the contemporary art practices in post-handover Hong Kong today.
The consciousness of modern art and international art movements may be observed in Hong Kong in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The emergence of the New Ink Painting Movement during that period saw aspects of Chinese ink painting incorporated with the gestural brushwork of Abstract Expressionism.
Hong Kong is now considered a significant regional art market due to its unique historical development and geographical position.
Prehistoric Hong Kong Prehistoric Hong Kong is the period between the arrival of the first humans in Hong Kong and the start of recorded Chinese history during the Han dynasty.
Neolithic pottery Excavations of Tung Wan Tsai North (Ma Wan) and Sha Tau Kok revealed instances of pottery from the Neolithic period. These include pottery with geometric patterns, along with tools like stepped adze, shouldered adze and other ground stone implements.
Rock carvings
Rock carvings dating back to what was the Bronze Age have been found in Hong Kong. There are nine officially listed Bronze Age rock carvings, featuring geometric and zoometric patterns carved into rocks, mostly found at coastal cliffs facing the sea.
Hong Kong under Imperial China (221 BC–1841 AD) The territory that now comprises Hong Kong was loosely part of China during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), and the area was part of the ancient kingdom of Nam Viet (203–111 BC). During the Qin dynasty, the territory was governed by Panyu County until the time of the Jin dynasty. The territory remained largely unoccupied until the later years of the Qing dynasty when Imperial China ceded the region to Great Britain under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, whereupon Hong Kong became a British Colony.
More broadly, the art of Imperial China from this period encompasses examples such as Buddhist art, murals, calligraphy, ink painting, and pottery.
Colonial Hong Kong (1841–1941) Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997. The colonial period began with the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841, during the First Opium War between the British and the Qing dynasty. The Qing had wanted to enforce its prohibition of opium importation within the dynasty that was being exported mostly from British India, as it was causing widespread addiction among its populace.
The island was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking, ratified by the Daoguang Emperor in the aftermath of the war of 1842. It was established as a crown colony in 1843. In 1860, the British took the opportunity to expand the colony with the addition of the Kowloon Peninsula after the Second Opium War, while the Qing was embroiled in handling the Taiping Rebellion. With the Qing further weakened after the First Sino-Japanese War, Hong Kong's territory was further extended in 1898 when the British obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories.
Early art clubs and exhibitions (1920s–1930s) Chances to view modern Western art were scarce in the early colonial period, with few foreign artists residing or exhibiting in Hong Kong, leaving the territory largely removed from international art movements. The main exception to this was Hong Kong's first art organisation, the Hong Kong Art Club, founded in 1925.
The Hong Kong Art Club was established and managed by wealthy British expatriates, with its members entirely composed of Europeans, most of whom were visiting artists staying temporarily in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Art Club carried the most extensive collection of literature on modern Western art in the territory at the time. Its members predominantly practiced Western realism, depicting local scenery in the styles of the English landscape tradition and the Barbizon school, using oil and watercolour. Rather than being for artistic exchange, the club was primarily a context for social gathering. While artworks produced by the Club displayed minimal association with local Hong Kong artists, they are an early instance of organised artistic activity and significant for documenting the landscapes of Hong Kong at that specific moment in time.
A short announcement on the opening of a solo exhibition by Luis Chan was published on 16 April 1935 by Kung Sheung Daily News or the Industrial and Commercial News (). It was one of the earliest articles on arts and culture in Hong Kong newspapers, being the first of many short reports on art events, also documenting local activity for art at the time. Chan was a watercolour painter known for his naturalistic landscapes.
Japanese occupation of Hong Kong (1941–1945) The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. The surrender occurred after 18 days of fierce fighting against the overwhelming Japanese forces that had invaded the territory.Snow, Philip. (2004). The fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese occupation. Yale University Press. , .Mark, Chi-Kwan. (2004). Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American relations 1949–1957. Oxford University Press publishing. , . p 14. The occupation lasted for three years and eight months until Japan surrendered at the end of the Second World War. The length of this period (, ) later became a metonym of the occupation.
Modern Hong Kong under British rule (1945–1997) In the aftermath of the Japanese surrender, it was unclear whether the United Kingdom or the Republic of China would assume sovereignty of the territory. The Kuomintang's Chiang Kai-shek assumed that China, including formerly European-occupied territories such as Hong Kong and Macau, would be re-unified under his rule. However, the British moved quickly to regain control of Hong Kong. On 30 August 1945, British Rear Admiral Sir Cecil Halliday Jepson Harcourt sailed into Hong Kong to re-establish the British government's control over the colony. On 16 September 1945, Harcourt formally accepted the Japanese surrenderDillon, Mike. (2008). Contemporary China: An Introduction. , . p 184. from Maj.-Gen. Umekichi Okada and Vice Admiral Ruitaro Fujita at Government House. By November 1945, government controls were lifted and free markets restored.Carroll, John Mark. (2007). A concise history of Hong Kong. , . p 123-125, p 129. The population returned to around one million by early 1946 due to immigration from China.
The emergence of art collectives and societies from the late 1940s onwards, in addition to the opening of the city's first purpose-built visual art spaces, marked new developments in Hong Kong's art scene. While Hong Kong art in the 1950s saw little support from the government, the decade would still see the growth of art education in Hong Kong, through new art courses and the establishment of new institutions for teaching art. By the 1950s, large numbers of mainland Chinese artists had entered the territory and dominated the local art scene, with Hong Kong serving as a temporary site for them to continue working in traditional Chinese styles. These early immigrant artists, mainly from Shanghai and Nanjing, brought along with them wealth and artistic influences from the Shanghai School and the Jin Ning School. Stylistically, these works continued the orthodox traditions of Chinese ink painting, with little concern towards forming a specific Hong Kong identity. Artists from or based in Hong Kong would also begin participating in major international art exhibitions, with Wucius Wong and Ho Siu Kee participating in the 1959 São Paulo Art Biennial.
On 19 December 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which Britain agreed to return not only the New Territories but also Kowloon and Hong Kong itself when the lease term expired. China promised to implement a "One country, two systems" regime, under which for fifty years Hong Kong citizens could continue to practice capitalism and political freedoms forbidden on the mainland.
In 1995, the Hong Kong government established the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to "plan, promote and support the wide development of arts (including literature, performance, visual and film arts) and arts education," also including a visual arts sub-committee.
Art publications and education On 25 November 1948, the Overseas Chinese Daily News () began publishing articles on art and culture. These articles were more detailed than those previously published in other newspapers, now including news on exhibition openings, art competitions, and commentaries on challenges faced by the cultural industries. In 1948, the Overseas Chinese Daily News also began publishing the Hong Kong Year Book, an annual publication on Hong Kong that continued until 1991.
The 1950s saw the growth of courses and institutions for art education in Hong Kong. In 1951, the first art course in Hong Kong was launched at the Grantham College (now the Education University of Hong Kong). The following year in 1952, the Hong Kong Academy of Fine Arts opened. In 1953, the University of Hong Kong's (HKU) Department of Chinese launches an undergraduate course in Chinese art and archeology.
The Modern Literature and Art Association (1958–1964) In December 1958, the Modern Literature and Art Association was established by a group of writers and artists. Its mission, outlined in its founding manifesto, was to bring cultural workers together and reinvigorate declining cultural development in China. The association organised exhibitions, such as the Hong Kong International Salon of Paintings, and published periodicals.
From 1959 to 1960, the association would publish New Currents (). In 1963, the association would publish Modern Editions (), a 13-issue periodical on arts.
The association became inactive from 1964 onwards. Members of the association would include artists and writers such as Hon Chi-fun, Quanan Shum, Cheung Yee, David Lam Chun-fai, King Chia-lun, Van Lau, and Wucius Wong.
Hong Kong Art Today (1962)
From 25 May to 4 July 1962, the exhibition Hong Kong Art Today () was held at the Hong Kong City Hall Museum and Art Gallery (later renamed Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1975). Featuring a total of 120 exhibits by 65 artists, it was the first major exhibition of the Museum and Art Gallery after its opening in March, as well as the first large-scale art competition organised by the government. Hong Kong Art Today was thus significant as the first exhibition with Hong Kong art as its theme.