From local talent the two outstanding offerings were the Wah Yan College production of another Cantonese opera in English entitled "The Ugly Beauty" and the Hong Kong Stage Club's production of Sheridan's "School for Scandal”. The Wah Yan opera was not of such good quality as former productions; the actors seemed somewhat lost in the vastness of the auditorium of Queen's College compared with their own intimate college theatre. Sheridan's comedy went over with great gusto, partly due to the inclusion in the cast of several erstwhile professional actors and actresses, and the production was well staged and dressed, the players being provided with a surprising amount of XVIII century impedimenta.
The same high standard of previous years was maintained at the Photographic Society's International Salon of Photography held in St. John's Cathedral Hall in November, and the quality of the Annual Exhibition of the Hong Kong Art Club in January was outstanding, including works by professional and amateur artists. There were the usual number of Chinese art exhibitions at the Hotel Cecil, but this year the best of these was a one-man show by a Chinese artist in the western style, Yee Bon, whose portraits of Chinese women place him among the foremost Asian painters of the day. Yee Bon is a resident of Hong Kong and a regular exhibitor of the Art Club's shows.
Comparatively unnoticed by the public, the Government has been quietly going ahead assembling material suitable for inclusion in the museum it may be presumed will be included in the future City Hall, which is mentioned elsewhere in this Report and which is under consideration by Government and a large public committee.
Last year it was noted in this chapter that the Government had restored what remained of the Chater Collection and had purchased a considerable number of objets d'art from Mr. Henry Yeung. In the early part of 1951 there was an interesting outcome to the Chater Collection Exhibition held a few months earlier, in 1950. Mr. Wyndham O. Law, from whom the late Sir Paul Chater purchased the greater part of what later became known as the Chater Collection, having heard about the exhibition through the Royal Asiatic Society of which he is a member, wrote to the Government from England to inquire whether Hong Kong would be willing to purchase a collection of oil paintings and drawings all concerned with the China coast and which he did not include among the pictures sold to Chater. The offer was considered by the Governor-in-Council, and while they were in the United Kingdom as guests of His Majesty's Government to the Festival of Britain, Mr. T. N. Chau and Sir Man Kam Lo, both Members of the Executive Council, visited Mr. Law at Worthing in the company of Mr. Duncan J. Sloss, formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, and after seeing the pictures advised the Government to make an offer of
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