Tuesday, December 8, 2015

National Gallery of Singapore

National Gallery of Singapore, housed in the old supreme court and city hall buildings, had finally opened its door to welcome her first visitors in November.  It is after 10 long years of renovation and preparation work.  For a limited period, Singaporeans and PRs had the privilege to have free access to the galleries.

I managed to book my free tickets for the last day, 6 Dec, 10am - 2pm time slot.  We arrived at the gallery at around 10.10am.  There was already a queue, for ticket holders.

People queuing to enter NGS

Luckily the queue moved fast, we got into the gallery at around 10.30am.  I like the kind of Roman-Greek style of architecture, which shaped the city hall and supreme court buildings.  It really felt good with all the big stone columns, high ceilings, etc.

National Gallery is divided into four major sections, DBS, UOB, SingTel and Ng Teng Fong galleries.  Each gallery has further sub-galleries.  Overall, you have quite a lot of galleries, too much for a single visit, I must say.

UOB City Hall Courtyard

Concourse

The interior is spacious and modern.   I still remember when they came up with a few architecture proposals and asked Singaporeans to vote, I voted, and I also asked my friends to vote too.  I am happy that the proposal that I like is the one that was chosen, and that's what you see today.

NGS is specialized in the collection of South East Asian art work.  There are some gems in the collection.  One of them is a painting by famous Chinese painter Xu Beihong.

Painting by Xu Beihong

Xu Beihong's signature

Another one is a permanent gallery dedicated to Chinese contemporary painter Wu Guan-zhong.

Chinese Small Town by Wu Guan-zhong

Notre Dame by Wu Guan-zhong

There are also many paintings that are closer to our home, for example, old attap house.  This will bring back lots of good memories for our pioneer generation.


NGS is not just about paintings, the buildings are also part of an art heritage.  Look at these beautiful columns with Corinthian capitals, which were part of the former supreme court building.

Columns with Corinthian Capitals 

As NGS was just opened, there were many visitors on that Sunday, so it was a bit too crowded to enjoy all the art works.  However, I will definitely visit NGS again, when it is less crowded and have more time to enjoy the art works from our region.  And the good news is that NGS will continue to be free for all Singaporeans and PRs for the permanent galleries.

No comments:

Post a Comment