In 2020, Hong Kong Museum of Art to host the city's first-ever exhibition of Sandro Botticelli

After three years of large-scale expansion and renovation, the Hong Kong Museum of Art eventually celebrated its grand reopening to the public with a brand new look on November 30. To add to the excitement, the museum has signed a contract with Italy’s Uffizi Gallery to borrow the Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli’s paintings for Hong Kong’s first major Botticelli exhibition in 2020.

Well-known for his masterpiece The Birth of Venus, Botticelli was a famous painter in Florence at the end of the 15th century and a pioneer of Italian portraiture. In addition to The Birth of Venus, his other works, such as Primavera and The Adoration of the Magi, broke the tradition of precise proportionality to achieve the perfect embodiment of tenderness and harmony. 

A palace that has collected more than 20 Botticelli masterpieces, the Uffizi Gallery has become a pilgrimage for art in Florence. The collection on loan to the Hong Kong Museum of Art will primarily focus on Botticelli’s small- and medium-sized works. 

The Hong Kong Museum of Art is Hong Kong’s first publicly owned art museum, with more than 17,000 art treasures that reflect the city’s heritage as an international hub. Through various types of exhibitions, the museum presents a multidimensional art world based on the past and present, Chinese and Western dichotomies, and local and international perspectives. With its refurbishment and reopening, it will present the art realm in a more diversified way and epitomises the development of cultural ecology.

The exhibition in 2020 will be the first large-scale Botticelli exhibition ever staged in Hong Kong. It’s set to attract numerous art enthusiasts and tourists to appreciate the charming works and learn more about this artist, who played an essential role in the development of art history.