Keep your mitts off the Monets: Hong Kong museum to install protective covers for art show
Organisers take precautions by using acrylic screens after embarrassing breaches of etiquette by visitors to Art Basel fair
Organisers of the biggest Claude Monet exhibition ever staged in Hong Kong are taking no chances and will protect the works with special acrylic covers.
Visitors to the Art Basel fair last month were accused of damaging items and drew criticism for poor etiquette, such as slapping paintings “like bongo drums”.
Titled Claude Monet: The Spirit of Place, the exhibition at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum will feature 17 masterpieces from various periods of the French Impressionist’s life.
The art works, loaned from French national museums and private collections, are being exhibited for the first time publicly in Hong Kong.
Among the highlights are The Break-Up of the Ice at Vétheuil, facing Lavacourt, Water Lilies and Effect of Spring, Giverny.
While Monet is famed for his use of light and colour, The Break-Up of the Ice at Vétheuil, facing Lavacourt features darker shades, which museum director Fione Lo said reflected the artist’s mood when he was painting, as his wife had just died.