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The following is issued on behalf of the Provisional Urban Council:

The Hong Kong Museum of Art has always been taking part actively in fostering the development of Hong Kong art. To collect, preserve and reveal the accomplishments of senior local masters are part of the major aims of the Museum.

Solo exhibitions of senior masters including the Lingnan painters Gao Jianfu, Gao Qifeng, Chen Shuren, the traditionalist painter Huang Bore, the renowned calligraphers Feng Kanghou and Jian Qinzhai, the acclaimed local western painters Lee Byng, Ng Po-wan, Wong Siu-ling and Luis Chan were featured in the past years.

Following the success of these exhibitions, the Museum is now staging another important exhibition for one of the key figures of the early Hong Kong art circle -- Deng Fen.

Entitled "A Dream of the Red Dust -- Selected Works by Deng Fen", the exhibition features 44 representative works by Deng Fen, including beauties, Buddhas, landscapes, birds-and-flowers as well as animals.

Deng Fen (1894 ~ 1964) was born in a wealthy family in Guangdong, China and started his artistic cultivation in his young ages. In the 1920s, Deng was already active in the Guangdong art scene.

He was one of very few painters who excelled in composing musical pieces and arias for Cantonese Operas. The title of this exhibition -- A Dream of the Red Dust -- was inspired by and abstracted from several pieces of poems and verses written in his later years, in which the romantic artist expressed a kind of sad mood on life.

In the art of painting, Deng was particularly esteemed for painting figures, in particular beauties as well as Buddhist and Daoist images. Apart from figure paintings, he also attained significant accomplishments in painting horses, bamboos, birds-and-flowers with creative styles.

Deng fully understood that in depicting figures, he had to disclose the subjects' spirits and mind. His painting of beauties are marked by graceful images and charming postures. Although he was influenced by traditional Chinese figure painting, the outlooks of his figures look modern and contemporary.

To revive the realistic way to depict Buddhist Lohans, Deng studied the origins of Buddhist painting and featured his figures with an Indian outlooks as suggested by high noses, deep eyes, rich beard and curly hair. Such an outlook of his figures conveys a strong sense of solemnity.

The exhibition currently being staged in the Museum's Contemporary Hong Kong Art Gallery features art works accomplished in various stages of Deng's life-long artistic creation.

Located at 10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, the Museum of Art opens from 10 am to 6 pm from Monday to Saturday, and from 1 pm to 6 pm on Sundays and public holidays. It closes on every Thursday. Admission is $10 with half-price concession for senior citizens, full-time students and people with disabilities. Admission on Wednesdays is free.

For enquiries, please call 2721 0116.

End/Saturday, December 4, 1999

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