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THE ARTS
presentation of Chinese historical plays in English. The production 'A Lizard is no Dragon' received the usual enthusiastic support from Europeans and Chinese alike. A further step is being contemplated by the Hong Kong Dramatic Club which is now preparing for the production of a traditional Chinese play, in English, with European actors. Special classes have been organized to give their tuition in the standard conventions, movements and gestures of the classical Chinese theatre.
In the field of visual art, the past year saw an increasing number of exhibitions, particularly by Chinese painters, several of whom held one-man shows for the first time in 1961. There appears to be an even distribution of interest in the Western and traditional Chinese styles among these younger artists.
Four school children won medals against world competition in an art exhibition held in Rome in connexion with the Olympic Games. Excellent response was received to poster competitions sponsored by the Education Department, and 1961 also saw the opening of a commercial art class in the Technical College Evening Institute.
In Hong Kong, where one can obtain the world's best cameras at very reasonable prices, interest in photography seems continually to increase. Many vernacular newspapers now include full-page weekly magazine sections for photography; they also sponsor popular outings for amateur photographers, with participants often numbering thousands. It is therefore not surprising that Hong Kong should have won even greater world fame in this field of art. Over 100 Hong Kong photographers sent their works abroad for exhibition in about 150 salons during the past year, winning numerous acceptances and prizes. In the London Salon, one-fifth of the exhibited works was by Hong Kong photographers. In the latest edition of Who's Who in Pictorial Photography, published by the Photographic Society of America, Hong Kong photographers occupy the top five places.
GOVERNMENT COLLECTIONS
The Government Picture Collections will be available for exhibi- tion in the Art Gallery of the new City Hall after its opening in March 1962.