Canton Modern: Art and Visual Culture, 1900s–1970s

This exhibition presents the complexity of twentieth-century Cantonese art and visual culture as an important chapter in global modernism. Sharing a linguistic and cultural identity, the southern port cities of Guangzhou and Hong Kong have historically been marginal in China. As the birthplace of revolution, these cities fostered a distinctive visual and artistic modernism shaped by cross-cultural interactions and the tensions between conservative and progressive art worlds. Bringing together over 200 works from institutional and private collections, many on public display for the first time, Canton Modern recovers a deeply rooted local story with contemporary global resonance.

Photo | Fang Rending, Mother and Son in the Rain, 1932, ink and colour on paper. M K Lau Collection, Hong Kong. © Estate of Fang Rending. Image courtesy of M K Lau Collection, Hong Kong