ENG-1980 — Page 282

RECREATION AND THE ARTS

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The storage capacity of the main repository has now become exhausted and temporary sub-offices have had to be established, pending the provision of further permanent accommodation. During the year, an additional sub-office was opened with a capacity of 1,000 metres of shelving.

Hong Kong Museum of Art

Housed in the high block of the City Hall, the Hong Kong Museum of Art presented 12 exhibitions in 1980. These featured Chinese and contemporary local art, as well as art from France, Britain, Singapore and the Philippines. A children's art exhibition organised by the museum added a bright note in the year's programme. Co-sponsors of these events included the Association of Hong Kong Children's Art Exhibitions, the Consulate-General of France, the British Council, the Min Chiu Society, the Museum of Philippine Art and the Ministry of Culture of Singapore.

During the year, 277,530 people visited the exhibitions - an average of 898 a day. The museum also organised regular film shows and guided tours for school groups. Small exhibitions were arranged for lending, free-of-charge, to schools, libraries and cultural institutions.

Significant pieces acquired by the museum in 1980 included a calligraphy album by Wu Li, a watercolour album by Tingqua, a portrait by Lamqua, sketches by George Chinnery and Auguste Borget, and many fine mandarin robes of the mid-Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty (1644-1911 ad).

Hong Kong Museum of History

During 1980, the Museum of History at Star House in Kowloon organised a series of special thematic exhibitions. Along with the regular standing displays, these exhibitions attracted 428,383 visitors. The Lei Cheng Uk Branch Museum and the Han Tomb received an additional 46,359 visitors.

One of the most important exhibitions of the year was entitled Rescuing the Past: Salvage Archaeology in Hong Kong. This exhibition paid unexpected dividends when members of the public were encouraged to donate to the museum recent archaeological finds - ranging from Tang (T'ang) Dynasty ceramics (618-907 AD) to Song (Sung) Dynasty coins (960-1279 AD). Another special exhibition was Hong Kong's Transport: Past, Present and Future, which traced the progress of transport up the Mass Transit Railway.

The museum participated in the Hong Kong in London Festival in which its scale model of the famous Chinese junk, the Keying, was exhibited. Later, the model was displayed for several months in the Exeter Maritime Museum.

Significant additions to the museum's collection during the year included Birds of Asia, containing more than 500 hand-coloured lithographs by John Gould (1804-1881); a fine and comprehensive collection of Hong Kong butterflies, and seven breech-loading British cannons of the Victorian period.

The archive on Hong Kong's historic buildings and archaeological sites continued its steady growth and is now a major source of data.

With the co-operation of the Prisons Department, the work of restoring the perimeter walls and staircases of the fort at Tung Chung on Lantau Island, was completed. Ex- cavation of the foundations of interior structures in the Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty fort on Tung Lung Island continued.

At the end of the year, the list of monuments gazetted under the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance had increased to nine.