UK National Gallery director says ‘innovative’ and ‘playful’ presentation style at Hong Kong’s Palace Museum something to take back to London

The decision by Britain’s National Gallery to bring 52 of its masterpieces to Hong Kong as part of a major Asia tour is expensive, but a good investment that has inspired the London landmark to try “innovative” and “playful” presentations, its director has said.

Gabriele Finaldi added it was rare for the almost 200-year-old gallery to organise large-scale overseas exhibitions such as the present one at the Hong Kong Palace Museum.

But he said the institution was “looking to be more present abroad”.

“As the bicentenary [of the gallery] approaches, we thought it was an opportunity to raise the gallery’s profile, build up our audiences, and also to establish new professional and institutional connections,” he said.

Hong Kong is the last leg of the tour, which coincided with the closure of one-third of the gallery for renovations, after Shanghai and Seoul earlier this year.

The only other time paintings from the gallery’s collection have gone abroad was to Australia and Japan in 2020 and 2021.

The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (“The Garvagh Madonna”) by Raphael is among the works on show. Photo: May Tse

The “Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery” exhibition features 52 paintings by 50 renowned artists such as Raphael, Rembrandt, Monet and Gauguin and will be on show at the West Kowloon Cultural District venue until April 11 next year.

Finaldi, also a British art historian, did not reveal the cost of taking the artworks on tour, or the expected revenue from it.

He said the Asia tour was expensive to organise but a good investment because it helped raise the profile of the National Gallery.

“For us … an old museum to team up with a very, very modern museum, here in Hong Kong was very attractive, and there is a very skilful curatorial team here, and there was a very, very good response to our proposal,” Finaldi said.

He added the digital and interactive elements for the city exhibition – brought in by Palace Museum curators – was something to take back to Britain as “the slightly playful character of presentation” was not often seen at the London gallery, which used a more traditional approach.

“It adds to the richness of the experience, it was something additional, an interpretation putting the work in context,” he said.

Louis Ng Chi-wa, the director of the Palace Museum, said it wanted to promote cultural exchanges through visiting exhibitions in addition to its focus on traditional Chinese art.

“I wrote about 70 letters to the directors of some of the world’s most prominent museum directors asking for partnerships and opportunities to bring their collections to Hong Kong,” he said.

Ng added he was delighted by the response from the National Gallery.

Finaldi did not confirm whether further collaborations between the two institutions were in the pipeline.

But he said that it was important to establish an initial relationship and thought that the exhibition was “just the beginning”.

Finaldi added there could be more joint efforts, but that major international tours on the present scale were unlikely to be a future strategy for the gallery.

“We may do a little bit more in the future, but I’d say the gallery has not done it very much,” Finaldi said. “It doesn’t intend to do a great deal in the future.”

He also recommended five of his personal favourites from the masterpieces on show at the Palace Museum.

Saint Jerome in his Study. Photo: National Gallery

Saint Jerome in his Study (about 1475) by Antonello da Messina

“This is a picture by a Sicilian artist working in northern Italy. It gathers together all the different innovations that were part of the Italian Renaissance such as new techniques of oil painting as well as a new understanding of perspective, light and space.”

The Virgin in Prayer. Photo: National Gallery

The Virgin in Prayer (1640-50) by Sassoferrato

“What you’re seeing is a beautifully preserved 17th-century painting, where the quality of pigments and the beauty of the intensity of the blue, which is pure lapis lazuli, makes for a very memorable image. It’s a very tender image as well.”

Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart. Photo: National Gallery

Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart (about 1638) by Anthony van Dyck

“The full-length portrait was designed to impress – the scale, the colour, the elegant poses. It is a spectacular showy portrait of these two handsome, aristocratic young men – who perished in the English Civil War in the 1640s – spectacularly dressed in all the sort of insouciance and aristocratic haughtiness as they looked down at us from above.”

Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula. Photo: National Gallery

Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula (1641) by Claude Lorrain

“Hong Kong is a great international port, so to see a port scene painted in Rome by a French artist in the 1650s, I think, resonates with the local population. He’s spectacular at these amazing effects of the sunlight in the picture, which reflects on the surface of the water and illuminates the classical antiquity in the work.”

Wineglasses. Photo: National Gallery

Wineglasses (probably 1875) by John Singer Sargent

“Here’s the young Sargent – an American artist who worked in Paris – probably not even 20 years old, very alive to the new developments in French painting and doing his own Impressionistic take on the garden scene with wine glasses in the foreground, and who had been to the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.”