V&A in China

The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses one of the most comprehensive and important collections of Chinese art in the west, amounting to over 15,000 objects, with fine examples from all branches of Chinese art including ceramics, jade, metalwork, lacquer, textiles, furniture, sculpture, ivory, bamboo, rhinoceros horn, glass, paintings, manuscripts and prints. The collection has particular strength in the applied arts of later dynastic China, after AD1500, and the V&A continues to collect actively, with a focus on excellent examples of contemporary art and design. Five Chinese-speaking members of V&A staff contribute to projects relating to China. Visitors to the T.T. Tsui Gallery of Chinese Art and in the Robert H N Ho Family Foundation Gallery of Buddhist Sculpture can read our gallery labels both in English and Chinese. The Museum possesses one of the most comprehensive and important collections of Chinese art dating from 3000 BC to the present time. The T.T.Tsui Galleru displays magnificent textiles, exquisite porcelain and elegant furniture among the many treasures of the finest quality and design. They are displayed according to use - living, eating and drinking, burial, the court, temple worship and collecting.

Exhibitions In late 2010, exhibitions presented in Chinese venues include the digital art exhibition Decode at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing and Indian Temple Sculpture at the Shanghai Museum to mark the Shanghai Expo. Other V&A exhibitions in China include The Golden Age of Coutureat the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in 2009, and A Century of Olympic Posters in the Capital Museum, Beijing (70,053 visitors) and the Liaoning Provincial Museum in Shenyang (140,626 visitors in 6 weeks) both in 2008. In 2008, the V&A presented China: Design Now, a major exhibition on Chinese contemporary design. A conference was held during the exhibition, which saw an exchange of scholarly opinion on the subject of Chinese graphic, fashion, product and Industrial design. This exhibition has since toured to venues at the Cincinnati Art Museum and Portland Museum of Art in the US and achieved a high profile among young creatives and mainstream media inside China. We are now preparing an ambitious exhibition of Great Masterpieces of Chinese Paintings for the V&A programme in 2013. Other successful touring exhibitions include Vivienne Westwood which, following successes in Shanghai and Taipei, toured to Hong Kong between December 2008 - January 2009 where it was enjoyed by 51,328 visitors. Future projects include an exhibition on China’s ceramic interactions with Europe, in collaboration with the National Museum of China and the British Museum, planned for 2012, which will also tour to other venues in China; and an exhibition of British watercolours from the V&A collection, to be shown at Shenzhen Museum in 2012. Completing our plans for 2012, the year of the London Olympics, is a plan to present British Design 1948-2012, an exhibition of 20th century UK design, architecture and graphics in China in autumn 2012. Our exhibition The Splendour of India’s Royal Court will be shown at the Palace Museum in 2013, following the exhibition Imperial Chinese Robes from the Forbidden City at the V&A in 2010.