Art, heirlooms and vintage pieces transform curator’s rented house into a home

In 2016, when Georgia Manifold, a Hong Kong-based Australian art consultant and curator, moved into a rented 2,700 sq ft, three-storey house in a quiet and leafy corner of Jardine’s Lookout, there was no need to start from scratch. Twelve years of living in Shouson Hill with her husband, who works for an aviation company, and their three sons meant they had accrued more than enough furniture and, of course, lots of contemporary art.

“I’m big on sustainability, so when we moved in three years ago, I hardly bought any­thing new,” Manifold says. “We have a lot of family heirlooms and an embarrassing number of things have been given to us as gifts.”

House-clearance sales in Australia, which she left in 2004, and Hong Kong, her home since then, have been a good source for vintage homewares, too. Among the vintage furni­ture and inherited silverware, Manifold points out a favourite sofa dating from the 1980s – made by her mother, an interior designer – which she refreshes every now and again with new fabric.

“The only thing I bought new was lighting, which I’m obsessed by,” says Manifold referring to the various pendant lamps marking out areas in the airy open-plan living and dining space and central stairway. Their modernist designs could be mini art installations in themselves and draw the eye up towards the high ceiling of the colonial-style house, which was built in the late 60s. With two bedrooms and a bathroom on each of the upper floors, the light-filled house retains many of its original features and provides a character­ful backdrop to Manifold’s eclectic art collection.

On every available wall, paintings dating from Manifold’s time as an art student in Sydney mingle with elegantly framed landscapes, colour-block abstracts and riotous feminist iconography in mixed media.

“It’s my life,” says Manifold. “It’s where I’ve lived and what I’ve done. Many [of the works] come from art-school mates, galleries I’ve worked in, or are bits and pieces I’ve made, photo­graphs I’ve exhibited. Some have come from exhibitions I’ve curated that I haven’t wanted to let go. Others are from our travels or because they evoke a particular memory.”

Manifold, who operates an online art-auction site (theviewingroom.hk) from her studio and gallery space in Wong Chuk Hang, often brings work home to try out on her walls.

“It makes things look a bit haphazard sometimes, but I like haphazard,” she says. “I don’t like things to be too contrived.”

A passionate advocate for buying art that resonates on a personal level rather than merely being a decorative investment, Manifold has unearthed some of her best finds at charity auctions held by the Sovereign Art Foundation and Para Site. Others were picked up at art fairs or have been sourced through a collectors’ group initiated by Manifold that focuses on mid-career and emerging Asian artists.

“I got fed up with people going to the Dafen art village in Shenzhen to buy terrible things, or have something they liked copied there – to match the sofa!” she says. “It was so depressing when there is so much great, and quite affordable, art in the region. It’s hard because people see these million-dollar pieces during art week and they think that’s what you need to spend to get ‘proper art’. So I wanted to promote these emerging artists and do my bit to educate art buyers: please, anything but Shenzhen!”

Dining area The teak table was bought during a holiday in Bali, Indonesia. The Ming-style cabinet was purchased a decade ago from Artura Ficus. The Hans Wegner Wishbone chairs came from friends who were leaving Hong Kong. The silverware pieces are all family heirlooms while the mirrored drinks tray, now discontinued, was bought from Bowerbird.

The paper-and-wood Lullaby pendant light cost HK$1,860 from Manks. Artworks include (clockwise from top left): a black tree, by Australian artist Sally Smart; a small painting that was a gift from an art- school friend; a digitally enhanced print, by Shanghai artist Yang Yongliang; another of Smart’s works, which pops with purple legs; and a pencil drawing, by Tibetan-American artist Palden Weinreb, bought during a Para Site charity auction.

Dining area detail The pair of moody Chinese landscapes are by Beijing-based photographer Han Lei. The naked teak console table was bought several years ago from Tree. Hugo the family cat sits between a book sculpture, which was part of an installation Georgia Manifold created for an Art Basel event, and a miniature Hong Kong landscape.

The latter was a gift from Australian artist and distant relative Harley Manifold, who painted it during a trip to the city last year. The orchid basket cost HK$520 from Mirth. The chair was inherited from Georgia Manifold’s parents.

Living room Manifold bought the Artemide floor lamp from Aluminium (now closed) with her first pay cheque after arriving in Hong Kong 15 years ago. Vintage sofas (the one in the foreground was designed by Manifold’s mother), re-covered several times, were most recently reupholstered by Molly Yuen (tel: 6687 7802) in a denim fabric purchased in a shop in Sham Shui Po.

A large charcoal ottoman from Mirth (HK$4,500) is offset by a colourful pouf and cushions from Missoni Home. On the wall above the sofa, a linocut plywood piece (top left), picked up from Fo Tan Open Studios, and a work of pixelated colours by Australian-British artist Matt Johnson, bought from Olsen, in Sydney, sit alongside a pastel artwork from an art-school friend.

Kitchen detail An old desk from Ikea was repainted and refreshed with a yellow acrylic-coated fabric, also from the Swedish furniture giant. Both items are now discontinued. The artwork, by Sydney-based artist Louise Tuckwell, was a birthday gift. The tea towel is old and was bought from Habitat. The kitchen scales came from Pan-Handler years ago. The pewter jugs were a wedding present.

Stairwell The Korean chest and vintage Louis Vuitton suitcase were bought at clearance auctions in Hong Kong. Behind are a set of red-and-black pieces, taken from a calendar featuring the art of papercutting, which was bought in Beijing’s 798 Art District. Above are works by Australian artists Guan Wei (left; from Arc One Gallery) and Smart.

Main bedroom The Ay Illuminate bamboo-and-cotton pendant light is now discontinued but an updated model is available from Questo Design for €412 (US$466). Tripod lamps from Habitat, now discontinued, sit on Ikea bedside tables, which were bought more than 20 years ago. The purple-and-white accent pillow cost HK$190 from Inside. The chest is an old keepsake and the artworks were gifts.

Youngest son’s room The astronaut bedding set, HK$990 from Indigo, is comple­mented by outer space-themed cushions from K-Mart and a poster showing the phases of the moon. The Anglepoise lamp was bought during a shopping trip in Shenzhen years ago. The glossy red Ikea shelf is now discontinued.

Tried + tested

Basket case Can there be anything more annoying than opening the basement-level door to leave your house only to realise that you’ve left something important on the top floor? The Manifolds have found a simple solution.

Taking advantage of the wide central stairwell in their 1960s house, the family make use of a large wicker basket and a sturdy sailing-grade rope permanently attached to the railing on the third-floor landing to send things down. “My sons came up with the idea and we had the rope and basket lying around at home so it was easy to put together. There’s no special winch or pulley, it’s just powered the old-fashioned way,” says Georgia Manifold.

To watch a video of Georgia Manifold’s house, visit www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine.