Hong Kong Museum of Art

Few art museums sit as close to the water as the Hong Kong Museum of Art (香港藝術館), whose galleries on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront look directly across Victoria Harbour to the Hong Kong Island skyline. Its collections bring together Chinese art from antiquity to the present and the art of Hong Kong itself.

Chinese painting and calligraphy are central to the museum, including the Xubaizhai collection donated by the collector Low Chuck-tiew. Other galleries show Chinese antiquities such as ceramics, bronzes and jade, along with historical pictures painted for the China trade that record Canton, Macau and early Hong Kong. Modern and contemporary work by Hong Kong artists completes the picture.

The museum opened in 1962 in City Hall and moved to its present building beside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in 1991. A later redevelopment expanded the galleries and opened up the harbour views. It draws more than 600,000 visitors a year.