A magnificent view of Hong Kong from the Time Ball c.1886
(unknown photographer)
An exhibition of original antique and vintage photographs of Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou c.1868 – 1964 is being held at the Wattis Fine Art gallery on Hollywood Road, Hong Kong.
Organizers said that they are delighted to feature the work of British photographer, Robert Crisp Hurley, who lived in Hong Kong for over 48 years between 1879 and 1927. Hurley is remembered as a “guidebook pioneer” who specialized in photography and cartography in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou.
Gallery owners Jonathan and Vicky Wattis say that, with assistance from Dr Stephen Davies of Hong Kong University, they were able to conduct “fascinating research” on Hurley and place the illusive character in the context of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The organizers said that their research led them to conclude that Hurley “was an extraordinary man,” after uncovering his diverse talents. They felt that this exhibition presents some of his “unusual photographs”.
“From the record we know that at one time or another he was a businessman making hats, an accountant, a hotelier-restaurateur, a writer and publisher, a tour guide, a civil servant, and amateur mapmaker and a photographer,” wrote Jonathan Wattis.
He added that “often his [Hurley’s] photographs are of a documentary nature, and although he recorded buildings that are familiar to us, they were often from an unusual angle. He also took unusual and possibly unique pictures of lesser-known buildings.”
The exhibit will also include early photographs by Afong Lai, John Thomson and William Pryor Floyd – three of the most accomplished early photographers working in Hong Kong and South China in the 1860s.
Fast forward to the mid-20th century; the exhibition includes two group portraits of Hong Kong policemen, taken in 1949 and 1950 by commercial photographic studios.
These photographs capture a historical period of rapid change, much like our own, in which people were acutely aware of the quickening pace of technological change. Between the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, authorities entirely revised modes of transport, usually incorporating railroads and steam shipping into their networks.
Some of the photos to be exhibited have eerie connections with the Pearl River Delta region of today. According to Jonathan Wattis, some of the photographs show early land reclamation projects, typhoons, and the replacement of old modes of transport with the new, by land and by sea.
When asked what the collected photographs of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou can tell us about modernity in the region, Wattis quoted Confucius: “Study the past if you would divine the future.”
There will be a private viewing of the exhibition today, while the display will open to the public tomorrow and run until December 12. Staff reporter
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