First Hong Kong Pavilion to open at annual London art fair

The first Hong Kong Pavilion is to be displayed at the annual Masterpiece London art fair opened Thursday night in the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. The pavilion, sponsored by Hong Kong's Fine Art Asia fair and supported by The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, includes traditional and contemporary Chinese works of art. Highlights of the pavilion show include works by Fang Zhaoling (1914-2006), Lui Shou Kwan (1919-75), Wucius Wong (1936-), and Chen Guangwu (1938-), which portray the artists' responses to Hong Kong's challenges as a rapidly developing metropolis and reference the assortment of cultures that have made the city their home, spanning modern and ancient, west and east. The director of the Hong Kong trade office Erica Ng said at the launch that the pavilion was "a significant recognition of Hong Kong's growing recognition and importance in the art world." Ng paid a special praise for Fang Zhaoling, saying she "contains her passion for her homeland and her love of the beauty of rural nature." Fang was a leading pioneer woman artist with a long and distinguished career. She studied under Zhao Shao'ang of the Lingnan School who advocated that painting should reflect reality and not be bound by traditional formulae and also studied with Zhang Daqian, who taught her the "splashed ink and color" technique. Other works highlighted in the show include paintings by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro, modern works by contemporary artists including Bill Viola and Marc Newson, and works from antique eras including artists Albrecht Durer and Nicholas Hilliard. The Masterpiece London art fair is now in its fourth year, and brings dealers, sellers, and buyers of art, design, antique furniture, precious jewels and collectors' items together to trade up to 1 billion pounds worth of goods. In a reciprocal arrangement, Masterpiece London will curate a pavilion dedicated to European art works at Fine Art Asia in Hong Kong in October.