art-museum-and-institute-of-chinese-studies

# Art Museum and the Institute of Chinese Studies: A Major Hub for Chinese Art Designed with Input from I. M. Pei and Built upon the Bei Shan Tang Collection

A museum designed with input from the architectural master I. M. Pei at the geographic heart of its campus, which from its opening day did not start from scratch—it was founded on the private collection of a philanthropist, growing over more than fifty years into a public collection of over 16,000 items. This entry treats the Art Museum as a single dossier with two interwoven threads: how it came into being (institutional history, building design, the founding of its collection and its institutional home), and what it holds (its four core specialisms: seals, Song-dynasty rubbings, Guangdong painting and calligraphy, and Ming-Qing furniture). The story of the building and its greatest treasures are, after all, the exterior and interior of the same museum, and so they are placed side by side here. For a broader overview of campus museums and ecology, see museums-and-ecology.md; for the Institute of Chinese Studies and related academic units, see 04-research/china-studies-and-archives.md. The names of deceased donors and directors are recorded in full, based on publicly available sources.

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# 1. Founding (1971): The Birth of a University Museum

According to the Art Museum's official history^※ and the English Wikipedia^※, CUHK's Art Museum was founded in 1971 and situated at the heart of the campus. Its mission is to collect, preserve, research and exhibit a wide range of artefacts that illuminate ancient and pre-modern Chinese art, humanities and cultural heritage, serving both the University community and Hong Kong society. The museum owes its birth to the combined efforts of several key figures:

• The visionary: As recorded in the Art Museum's official history^※, CUHK's founding Vice-Chancellor, Li Choh-ming, wished to establish a museum for the University;
• The founding benefactor and guiding hand: The late philanthropist Dr. J. S. Lee (Lee Jung-sen), patron of the Bei Shan Tang, provided crucial guidance and support;
• The first Director: According to the source, Dr. Lee recruited James Watt, an Oxford graduate then serving as Curator of the City Hall Museum and Art Gallery in Hong Kong, to be the museum's first Director.

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# 2. The Building: Designed with Input from I. M. Pei

The Art Museum building is itself a work of architecture worth documenting. According to the Art Museum's official history^※, at Dr. Lee's invitation, the building was designed by Dr. Szeto Wai and I. M. Pei. This museum at the centre of the campus opened its doors in the autumn of 1971.

I. M. Pei is among the most celebrated Chinese-born architects of the 20th century, his best-known works including the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris. His involvement in designing the CUHK Art Museum reflects both the connections and the connoisseurship of Dr. Lee of Bei Shan Tang, and it means that from the moment of its completion, the museum possessed the dual value of a collection and a piece of architecture. In the 2020s, the museum underwent an expansion (reported by CUHK in Focus^※), which preserved the historic building while incorporating a contemporary architectural vocabulary, sustaining a spatial character of "blending past and present." The fruit of this expansion—the Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion—is discussed in Section VIII of this article.

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# 3. Institutional Home: Its Relationship with the Institute of Chinese Studies

The Art Museum is not an isolated gallery but is embedded within the framework of CUHK's Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS). According to the ICS official page^※ and the Art Museum's official history^※, the museum's original exhibition galleries are physically linked to the ICS, whose inner courtyard is laid out as a Chinese garden.

The significance of this institutional placement is that the museum's collecting and exhibiting and the Institute's teaching and research reinforce each other: the artefacts provide primary physical evidence for academic study, and scholarship lends depth to their interpretation. This echoes the very spirit of CUHK's founding, which took Chinese culture as its bedrock: in a university whose name is "Chinese," Chinese artefacts are not merely items on display, but living materials for teaching and research. For its exhibitions, the Art Museum also produces interactive learning kits and accompanying scholarly lectures, transforming a physical collection into an academic resource simultaneously accessible to general visitors and specialist researchers alike—this is precisely the core value that distinguishes a university museum from an ordinary public gallery.

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# 4. Just How Large is the Art Museum's Collection?

The Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong now holds over 16,000 items^※ of cultural relics and works of art (per its official history, as last updated on the website), built upon the founding collection of Dr. J. S. Lee of Bei Shan Tang and enriched by successive Directors and donations from across society. It is currently regarded as "one of the best university museums in greater China"^※ (quoting the museum's own words).

This model—laying the foundation of a public collection with a private one—meant that from its inception, the Art Museum possessed a collection of considerable quality, rather than having to build from zero. This is one reason it was able to establish itself rapidly as a major repository of Chinese art in Hong Kong. According to the Art Museum's official history^※, Dr. Lee took the lead in building the collection, donating fine pieces from his own Bei Shan Tang collection and providing funds for the museum to acquire further works. The collection consequently spans a wide range of categories, including Chinese painting and calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, jades, seals, lacquerware, scholars' objects, and furniture. Three specialist collections, in particular, hold international scholarly standing: first, an assemblage of over 1,800 ancient seals^※; second, a collection of over a thousand Guangdong paintings and calligraphic works^※, with the Jen Yu-wen donation at its core; and third, a fine selection of Ming and Qing furniture representing three distinct regional traditions: Cantonese, Beijing, and Suzhou. Each of these is examined in turn below.

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# 5. The Seal Collection: Why Does It Lead Among University Museums Globally?

CUHK Art Museum's collection of ancient Chinese seals has been amassed through the continuous donation of over 1,800 items by Bei Shan Tang^※ (cumulatively, since the museum's founding in 1971). The collection leads university museums globally in both the number and diversity of its holdings. The seals span from the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods down to literati seal-carving of the late imperial and modern eras, covering a time range of over two millennia. From 28 September 2024 to 21 June 2025, the museum is presenting a selection of nearly 400^※ treasures from this collection in an exhibition entitled "The Bei Shan Tang Legacy: Chinese Seals^※." Using the dual axes of typology and historical development, the display traces the evolution of Chinese seals. The exhibition is arranged across eight thematic zones, covering dimensions such as seal forms and materials, usage and function, official seals, private seals, all-purpose seals, religious seals, pictorial seals, and literati seals. The following are a few examples from the display:

A word from the Vice-Chancellor: At the exhibition's opening, the then Vice-Chancellor, Rocky S. Tuan, stated: 「北山堂基金會向文物館饋贈了眾多藝術珍品，大大提升了本校推廣中國傳統文化的能力。^※」 (The Bei Shan Tang Foundation has donated a great many art treasures to the Art Museum, greatly enhancing the University's ability to promote traditional Chinese culture.)

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# 6. The "Ten Treasures of Bei Shan Tang": What Exactly Are These Song Rubbings?

The "Ten Treasures of Bei Shan Tang" donated by the Bei Shan Tang are the Song-dynasty calligraphic rubbings held in highest scholarly esteem by the CUHK Art Museum. All have been designated as National Precious Ancient Books^※, representing unique or best-preserved primary sources for the study of calligraphic history from the Han and Tang through to the Song dynasties. The museum holds over 2,000 rubbings in total, of which more than 20^※ items (the figure given in the 2025 exhibition statement) have been recognised by the Ministry of Culture (now the National Cultural Heritage Administration) and inscribed on the "National Catalogue of Precious Ancient Books"—the first institutional holdings in Hong Kong to be so listed. The "Ten Treasures of Bei Shan Tang" are the ten most representative pieces selected from among them:

From 23 September to 28 December 2025, the museum will hold a special exhibition titled "National Treasures in CUHK: Rare Rubbings of the Song Dynasty Donated by Bei Shan Tang^※." Professor Luo, the museum's Director, described these nationally significant Song rubbings as 「本校真正的傳家之寶」 ('truly the heirlooms of our University').

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# 7. Guangdong Painting and Calligraphy: Why Is the Jen Yu-wen Donation So Significant?

The nucleus of the Art Museum's Guangdong painting and calligraphy collection is the donation of over a thousand items by the historian Jen Yu-wen in 1973^※. Among these, the works of Ming and Qing Guangdong painters and masterpieces by the founders of the Lingnan School form one of the most systematic public collections housed in any university for the study of Lingnan art history. During the Republican era, Jen Yu-wen served the Nationalist government, and drawing upon his scholarly background and social connections, he assembled a systematic collection centred on Guangdong painting and calligraphy. The timing of his donation was critical: in 1973, a mere two years after the museum's founding, the entry of the Jen collection simultaneously raised both the volume and the academic depth of its holdings. The museum now holds over a hundred works by Gao Jianfu^※ alone, and together with pieces by Gao Qifeng, Chen Shuren and others, these constitute a complete corpus of specimens for researching the Lingnan School.

The Art Museum has organised a series of themed exhibitions around this collection. From August to December 2021, "Artistic Confluence in Guangdong: Painting and Calligraphy of Ming and Qing Guangdong, Part II: Qing Dynasty^※" exhibited more than 70^※ works, focusing on the culture of art collection and literati gatherings in Qing-dynasty Guangdong, with a particular emphasis on the flourishing scene—in which art patronage and literati gatherings intertwined—in Guangzhou during its period as a hub of foreign trade from 1686 to 1842. The exhibition featured three major Qing-dynasty collection systems:

From January to August 2022, "Artistic Confluence in Guangdong: Late Qing to Republican-Era Painting and Calligraphy^※" went further, exhibiting the parallel landscape of the Lingnan School (Ju Chao, Ju Lian, Gao Jianfu, Gao Qifeng, Chen Shuren) and the National Painting Research Society (Zhao Haogong, Lu Zhenhuan, Huang Bauruo, and others). It also encompassed calligraphic manuscripts by political figures such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, and Sun Yat-sen, presenting a panorama of Guangdong's artistic and literary ecology from the late Qing to the Republican period.

# The Wong Family's Century of Collecting Enters the Museum: Another Lineage of Cantonese Connoisseurship

In 2025–26, the Art Museum is exhibiting over a hundred^※ masterpieces of painting and calligraphy collected by the Wong family. This private collection, built up in Guangzhou between the two world wars, is one of the last top-tier Republican-era collections to enter a public institution in Hong Kong. The "Xiaohuafang Zhai" (Little Painted Boat Studio, ca. 1902–1940s) of the family of Wong Chiu-fan was a Guangzhou residence that served as an important salon for literati and artists. The collection focuses on Ming and Qing painting and calligraphy and includes masterpieces such as Wen Zhengming's Poem and Painting on Falling Flowers (ca. 1554–1567), Bada Shanren's Copying the Calligraphy of Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, Wu Li's Villa at Feng'e (ca. 1684–1710), and Yan Song's Visiting a Temple in the Western Hills in Running-Cursive Script. The family's donation of this collection—built up over three generations—to the CUHK Art Museum extends the Bei Shan Tang spirit of turning a private collection into a public trust, while adding another vein of Republican-era treasures to the museum's Guangdong holdings.

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# 8. Ming and Qing Furniture: How Do Three Regional Styles Meet in One Museum?

The Art Museum's Ming and Qing furniture collection is distinguished by its side-by-side presentation of three major regional styles: Cantonese, Beijing, and Suzhou. A thematic exhibition held from June to September 2019 displayed over thirty^※ fine pieces (dating from the 1700s through the early Republican period), revealing the regional diversity of traditional Chinese interior culture. The three styles each have distinct aesthetic directions, differing markedly in their choice of materials, structure, and decorative vocabulary:

Cantonese furniture was the focus of this exhibition. Its decorative style, which incorporates Western motifs, reflects Guangzhou's unique cultural position as a portal for foreign trade during the Qing dynasty—together with the museum's Guangdong painting and calligraphy collection, this forms a thematic narrative of "the material legacy of Lingnan culture." The exhibition also concurrently displayed Qing-dynasty export paintings from the Guangdong ports and genre paintings of old Beijing, creating a cross-media dialogue between furniture and painting.

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# 9. The New Wing Opens in 2025: What Does the Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion Bring?

On 21 March 2025, the museum's new wing, the Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion^※, was officially inaugurated. Designed by architect Rocco Yim, it takes the form of a cantilevered structure set into the hillside, clad in fair-faced concrete. Its Harold and Christina Lee Gallery features a 4.5-metre ceiling height, making it capable of accommodating large-format works. The inaugural exhibition for the new wing is "Transcending Transience: Art and Culture of Late Ming Jiangnan^※," presented jointly with the Shanghai Museum and CUHK's Department of Fine Arts. It showcases 193^※ rare cultural objects, nine of which are Grade-A cultural relics from mainland China making their Hong Kong debut. In addition to sponsoring this exhibition, the Bei Shan Tang Foundation donated a Ming-dynasty "Box with magnolia blossom design" (dated 1561)^※, continuing to enrich the collection. The Lo Kwee Seong Foundation and the Lee family funded the construction of the pavilion, and the Lee Hysan Foundation made an additional grant of HK$20 million^※ to support arts education programmes.

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# 10. Significance and Summary of the Three Specialist Collections

The Art Museum's significance to CUHK operates on three levels. First, it is the physical embodiment of the University's founding spirit—in a university whose bedrock is "Chinese culture," the museum transforms that abstract mission into a tangible, viewable collection. Second, it represents a dual legacy of architecture and art—a building designed with I. M. Pei's input, plus a collection founded by Bei Shan Tang, giving the museum a place in both architectural and art history. Third, it serves as a model for integrating teaching, research, and collecting—the museum's physical connection to the Institute of Chinese Studies exemplifies the university-museum ideal of a collection serving scholarship and scholarship illuminating the collection.

Related reading: Overview of Museums and Campus Ecology, Chinese Studies and Archives, Campus Buildings and Sites Directory.

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# Sources

• History — Art Museum (Official) — Official
• Chinese University of Hong Kong Art Museum (English Wikipedia) — Secondary
• Expanded Art Museum blends past with present — CUHK in Focus (Official) — Official
• Institute of Chinese Studies — Art Museum (Official) — Official
• The Bei Shan Tang Legacy: Chinese Seals — Art Museum (Official) — Official
• "The Bei Shan Tang Legacy: Chinese Seals" Exhibition Press Release — CUHK CPR (Official) — Official
• Artistic Confluence in Guangdong — Art Museum (Official) — Official
• A Glimpse of Stylish Painting and Calligraphy of Guangdong Artists and Collectors — CUHK CPR (Official) — Official
• Simplicity and Splendour: Chinese Furniture from 18th to 20th Century — Art Museum (Official) — Official
• National Treasures in CUHK: Rare Rubbings of the Song Dynasty donated by Bei Shan Tang — CUHK CPR (Official) — Official
• CUHK Art Museum inaugurates the Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion — CUHK CPR (Official) — Official