Hung Hsien’s second retrospective exhibition opened at the Asia Society Hong Kong (ASHK) on March 24th. Her first solo retrospective had opened last year on April 16th at the Asia Society Texas in Houston. Given her nonagenarian-related trepidation, she wavered, leaning mostly towards not attending. The tipping point seemed to be having high tea at the famed British Peninsula Hotel (a nostalgic memory for her) and reassurance from a robust retinue of nephews Paul and Fred and significant others Chris, Michael and I all in for the Queen of modern ink painting. And so, off she flew halfway across the globe bringing 92½ years of diasporic memories!!!
Margaret as she prefers to be addressed was the 6th in the ASHK series of notable but less heralded Chinese women painters of the 20th C. In fact, she was the first one still alive and able to attend their own exhibition! During the event-filled opening week, she gave video and audio interviews and tours, photo ops, a breakfast presentation and Q&A, and training of the docents. Clearly, Margaret’s physical presence made the exhibition come alive through constant interactions with both art-affiliated and other attendees who connected with her art. And, her exhibition was intentionally juxtaposed with the famed Art Basel Hong Kong art fair to allow international attendees to view her show, which happened.
ASHK is a beautiful contemporary museum designed by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien in a lush oasis of foliage located in the mid-levels of the Admiralty District on Hong Kong Island. It opened in 2012 adjacent to the British Consulate. Grey granite and variegated marble lined the angular walls of the new construction and the remaining original structures have been repurposed into an art gallery, theater and offices. In fact, ASHK is built upon a former British armory evidenced by excavated cannons and the still visible original rails for the carts to carry heavy munitions down to the harbor. It features a zigzag bridge and covered walkways reminiscent of Suzhou temples. Above the adjacent metropolitan fray, lush banyan and palm trees sheltered chirping birds.
As anticipated many important art people attended the opening, none moreso than Liu Kuosung (age 94) her former schoolmate from National Taiwan Normal University. Professor Liu is the celebrated founder of the then avant garde Taiwan-based Fifth Moon Group of which Margaret was the most prominent woman. This was a historic reunion of two icons of abstract ink painting, both living nonagenarians! A third member of the intended reprise was the leading Hong Kong abstract ink painter Wucius Wong. All three had exhibited together in a 1983 exhibition documented in archival photographs. But alas, he was taken ill and could not join. My father was intimately involved in this history as he discovered Liu Kuosung in 1964, organized the first exhibitions of the 5th Moon Group in the US, and brought him to the US on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, thus changing the arc of his career and that of modern Chinese ink painting. Liu introduced him to Margaret in 1966.
Some of the notable global attendees included curator Lesley Ma (Met NYC), noted art historian/editor Zheng Shengtian (Vancouver), artists Zheng Chongbin (SF) and Michael Cherney (Beijing), collector/artist Hugh Moss (HK), and gallerists Daphne King (Alisan in HK). One of the remarkable serendipitous interactions was with Yvon Chu, the son of the famed Chinese-French artist Chu The-Chun. He had been her oil painting professor and painted her portrait featured in both exhibitions. Yvon and Margaret marveled over the unbeknownst portrait which he, as head of his father’s art foundation, needed to document for their archives. I played a role in this story as this painting deemed critical to the exhibition had been misplaced for more than 30 years. Despite exhaustive searches by the three curators, it remained hidden. On the last afternoon of the lastday of my final visit to her studio before the exhibition, I had a premonition. At the very bottom of a large stack of dusty, flat cardboard boxes beneath her husband’s desk, I fully earned the new moniker ‘art sleuth’.
The exhibition was organized by her artistic phases: traditional Chinese ink painting (birds and flowers) as a student, abstract oil and return to ink during graduate school, her mature nature-inspired organic forms for which she is known. Several works by Liu and Wong helped provide context and reprise their joint exhibition of 1983. Many of the painting legends included contemporaneous photos of her. My two favorites were of Margaret painting in intense, elegant concentration whereas another renders her as a Canadian woodswoman on Hornby Island. A final hallway displayed her Hornby Island (off Vancouver Island) series and provided a complete timeline of her artistic life.
Three works which had not been exhibited in her first retrospective included two from the her show at the Martha Sutherlands gallery in 2016 and a black/white/beige diptych depicting a snow scene painted while in Hong Kong in 1982 when she taught ink painting at Chinese University of Hong Kong. She had not seen that latter painting in 43 years and had completely forgotten it. After staring and reabsorbing it at length, she finally declared ‘it is a beautiful painting’ and in her typical vast understatement ‘it is a good painting’ which of course with her high standards signifies outstanding.
I will try to capture the tenor of her opening. Margaret was her usual mindful and gracious self as she greeted and responded to the many attendees of all ages. Besides those who had previously crossed paths, I was impressed by how many young 20-30 something mostly female attendees approached her to tell her how much they enjoyed her artwork and to ask for a photograph together. I queried one group of three young art aficionados who had just accosted Margaret as to what resonated with them. One responded ‘freedom’ and another affirmed ‘movement’ both of which Margaret unequivocally captures in her work. In addition, because this was largely Chinese, Hong Kong-based audience, they showed a deeper knowledge and appreciation of modern abstract ink painting than the largely white, Houston-based audience. The lead curator Chris told me this was the largest, most spirited opening he had seen at ASHK, certainly due to Margaret’s unique paintings and personal warmth!
What were other highlights of Margaret’s grand tour? After having slept well (who does?) during her 14-hour flight, after checking into the hotel, she declared she was ready visit a museum. Off we went to M+, a brand new (2021) contemporary art museum devoted to Chinese and Asian contemporary works, 2D, 3D installations, digital, AI-generated. The featured exhibition was a major show of Zao Wu-ki’s (Chinese-French) prints which she walked through and bought a catalog. She had met him in Hong Kong in 1980s. Five hours later !!! she had viewed the rest of the museum by wheelchair, never once dozing off. The local curators told me their usual endurance is three hours at the most! Margaret’s Herculean art stamina became part of her 2026 Hong Kong legend!
At Art Basel for the first time, art booths extended the length and breadth of two entire floors of the massive HK Convention Centre. For comparison to my national medical meetings, all the poster boards and pharmaceutical displays were replaced by art works from well-known to emerging unshielded by glass or encasements as would be in a museum. Dizzying visual delight, eye candy everywhere. We visited all eight booths featuring modern and contemporary ink painting and breezed through many more, for which Margaret often shared pithy assessments. We spotted several oil paintings of Zao Wu-ki, perhaps the most highly regarded of the Chinese émigré-French artists, whose works were selling for 1 million USD. We also spied a complete set of Andy Warhol Campell soup cans and a Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture, for sale!
Our culinary adventures concentrated primarily on high-end Shanghainese food with xiao long bao (soup dumplings), crystal fried shrimp with peas, marinated jellyfish, century-old eggs with dofu, drunken chicken, fried egg white, roast duck, all at a high titer of gluttony. High tea at the Peninsula Hotel, a holdover from the British occupation, refreshed one of Margaret’s upscale memories. I might add it is amazing how much a micro crustless cucumber, egg, and salmon sandwiches can cost!
We should all aspire, at the age of 90, to have Margaret’s energy level, her sense of adventure, her deep appreciation of art, supported by our own dedicated crew. What an art adventure for a nonagenerian!
