RECREATION, SPORTS AND THE ARTS
the office hosted visits by various youth music groups from Singapore, Australia, the USA and South Africa.
Hong Kong Jockey Club Music Fund
The Hong Kong Jockey Club Music Fund was set up in December 1979 with a donation of $10 million from the jockey club for the promotion and development of music, dance and other related activities. It is a non-statutory trust fund, administered by a board of trustees. The fund awarded 119 grants and eight scholarships totalling $2,240,000 in 1992, enabling young people to study music and dance abroad, and assisting local schools and organi- sations to acquire musical instruments and dance equipment.
Museums
Hong Kong Museum of Art
Since its opening in November 1991 the new Hong Kong Museum of Art in Tsim Sha Tsui has won popular support. In 1992 the museum attracted 129 071 visitors and 725 school parties with 18 133 students.
The museum's permanent galleries on contemporary Hong Kong art, historical pictures, Chinese antiquities and Chinese fine art continued to display selected items from the museum collection on a rotation basis. The special exhibition gallery was devoted to the staging of local and overseas exhibitions on both Chinese and Western art.
The City Vibrance - Recent Works in Western Media by Hong Kong Artists, The Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition and The Hong Kong Artists Series were organised to promote local art. To celebrate the City Hall's 30th anniversary, Works by Urban Council Fine Arts Award Winners 1975 to 1992 was organised. The Splendour of the Qing Dynasty, a joint presentation by the Urban Council and the Min Chiu Society, and the Modern Chinese Painting and Calligraphy by Guangdong and Hong Kong Artists from the Taiyilou Collection presented the best of Chinese art to the public. The Kagoshima Art exhibition, jointly presented with Kagoshima Prefectural Government, introduced paint- ings and prints by artists from this southern Japanese prefecture.
The Xubaizhai Gallery was officially opened in September for the display of the world renowned Xubaizhai collection of ancient Chinese painting and calligraphy donated by Low Chuck-tiew. The inaugural exhibition, A Gift of Heritage, was a selection of 80 Chinese paintings and calligraphy works from the collection.
In 1992, the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware organised exhibitions on Chinese tea drinking, Chinese ceramic tea vessels and The Art of the Yixing Potter from the K.S. Collection. A tea ware competition was also organised to cultivate interest in pottery-making.
Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre was built to provide studio support for budding artists to practise. The centre provides equipped workshop facilities for ceramics, sculpture and print-making for hire by artists at subsidised rates. To mark its opening in April, an inaugural exhibition, Hong Kong Graphic Prints, was jointly organised with the Hong Kong Graphics Society. The exhibition Modern Art in Glass - Murano, Venice 1992 was also presented in association with the Nuova Marco Polo Glass Gallery of Italy at the centre's exhibition gallery in November. In addition to the hiring of the exhibition gallery, artists studios, seminar rooms and lecture hall, the centre also organised art courses, lectures and art video shows.
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