The National Palace Museum, home to one of the world’s biggest collections of imperial Chinese treasures, must expand its horizons internationally to let the “world see Taiwan,” President William Lai (賴清德) said on Friday as it marked its centenary.
The museum was re-established in Taipei in 1965 after the Republic of China government lost the Chinese Civil War against Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) communists and fled to Taiwan in 1949, taking with it thousands of cases of antiques once owned by China’s emperors, saving them from destruction during and after the revolution.
Speaking to inaugurate an exhibition of French impressionist and early modernist paintings from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), Lai said that the National Palace Museum was a “state asset.”
Photo: CNA
“The National Palace Museum not only needs to deepen its roots locally, it also needs to deepen them internationally. We need to go into the world, to let the world see Taiwan, but also to bring the world to Taiwan,” he said at the museum.
“The National Palace Museum is not only the National Palace Museum of Taiwan, but also the National Palace Museum of the world and I believe these values should be strongly supported by the international community,” he added.
A competing institution is in Beijing, the similarly named Palace Museum, although the National Palace Museum is not planning any joint anniversary events with China.
Quincy Houghton, the Met’s deputy director for exhibitions and international initiatives, speaking at the event with Lai, praised the close relations between the Taipei and New York museums, including in 1996 when the National Palace Museum sent some of its collection to the Met.
“We are honored to collaborate with the National Palace Museum on its very special centennial year,” she said.
Works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne are on show at the National Palace Museum through Oct. 12.
The show is the Met’s first large-scale presentation in Taiwan and is the first stop on its Asia tour before heading to the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.
Organized into five themed sections — “The Body,” “Portraits and Personalities,” “In Nature,” “From the City to the Country” and “By the Water” — the exhibition explores how artists responded to a century of social change and artistic evolution.
Highlights include Two Young Girls at the Piano by Renoir, celebrated for its luminous brushwork, and a preparatory study by Seurat for A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the National Palace Museum said.
For ticket details, visit: www.mediasphere.com.tw.
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
An exhibition celebrating Taiwan and Japan’s comic culture opened on Saturday in Taichung, featuring a section that explores Taiwanese reproductions of Japanese comics from when martial law limited Japanese representation. “A Century of Manga Culture: An Encounter of Taiwan and Japan’s Youth” held its Taiwan opening ceremony at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Comics after an initial one-month run in Japan’s Kyoto International Manga Museum between May 24 and June 24. Much like the Kyoto exhibition, the show mainly celebrates the comic connection between Taiwan and Japan through late Taiwanese comic book
RSS