18th December 2025 – (Hong Kong) The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) has unveiled a major exhibition programme for 2026, confirming nine new exhibitions that will deepen public engagement with Chinese culture while expanding dialogue with leading museums around the world. The schedule brings together grade-one national treasures from Beijing’s Palace Museum, landmark collaborations with top international institutions, new multimedia commissions by Hong Kong artists and an extended run for the crowd‑pulling Ancient Egypt show.
At the heart of the 2026 plan is the continuation of HKPM’s strategic partnership with the Palace Museum in Beijing. Building on the success of the opening suite of exhibitions in 2022, the two institutions will launch four new thematic shows featuring many objects travelling to Hong Kong for the first time. Alongside these will be three major international collaborations: a global jewellery exhibition with The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a Silk Roads Buddhist art show with the Guimet–National Museum of Asian Arts in Paris and an exhibition of Eastern Orthodox icons with the State Tretyakov Gallery in Russia. Two further projects will highlight Hong Kong creativity and the work and collection of local artist Wong Kwan Shut.
Announcing the programme, HKPM Museum Director Dr Louis Ng said the 2026 line-up underlines the Museum’s commitment to advancing understanding of Chinese art and its place within global culture. He stressed that, by “strengthening partnerships with leading international cultural institutions, connecting the traditional with the contemporary, and exploring the Palace Museum’s rich collection in new light”, the Museum aims to inspire curiosity, foster cross-cultural dialogue and nurture appreciation of cultural heritage in a rapidly changing world.
The four new thematic exhibitions co-organised with the Palace Museum will present national treasures through fresh curatorial approaches and innovative exhibition design. “The Forbidden City and the World: Cultural Encounters” (working title), opening on 3rd June 2026 in Gallery 1, will situate the Forbidden City within a global historical framework. More than 150 outstanding objects produced in China, Asia and Europe will reveal the ways China engaged with other civilisations through diplomacy, trade, science, philosophy and craftsmanship during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, underscoring the HKPM’s mission to link Chinese heritage with world cultures.
In Gallery 4, “Heavenly Horses: Masterpieces from the Palace Museum” (working title) will run from 20th March 2026 to 17th March 2027 (tentative), timed to celebrate the Year of the Horse. Jointly organised with the Palace Museum and exclusively sponsored by the Institute of Philanthropy, the exhibition will bring together nearly 100 horse-themed paintings by more than 60 artists from the Yuan dynasty to the 20th century. Drawn principally from the Palace Museum’s collection, and supported by loans from the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and HKPM itself, the show will explore imperial and literati painting traditions, the tension between heritage and modernity and the dialogue between Chinese and Western pictorial styles.
“Contemporary Design in Dialogue with Palace Display” (working title), opening on 30 September 2026 in Gallery 5, will focus on the Qing dynasty imperial workshops responsible for creating and maintaining court objects and furnishings. Around 200 treasures will illuminate the design, production, management and display of court art. Hong Kong designers and artists will participate in the exhibition’s design and curation, creating new connections between historical craftsmanship and contemporary design practices.
From 4th November 2026, Gallery 2 will present “Qing Court in Four Seasons: Life and Culture of the Imperial Household” (working title). Expanding on the popular current exhibition “From Dawn to Dusk: Life and Art in the Forbidden City”, this new show will use the changing seasons as a narrative framework to explore Qing court life. Nearly 200 exquisite works will demonstrate how emperors aligned their routines and activities with the cycles of nature, covering themes such as agriculture, diplomacy, religion, hunting and seasonal rituals and festivities across spring, summer, autumn and winter.
HKPM’s international outlook will be further reinforced by three special exhibitions co-organised with major global museums. “Treasures of Global Jewellery from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Body Transformed” (working title) will run in Gallery 8 from 15th April to 19th October 2026 (tentative). The exhibition will be The Met’s first major presentation in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong’s first large-scale survey of jewellery from six continents over nearly 4,000 years, from the second millennium BCE to the 21st century. Approximately 200 spectacular pieces from The Met, supplemented by select HKPM loans, will examine the intimate relationship between jewellery and the human body and highlight both the encyclopaedic scope of The Met’s collection and the diversity and interconnectedness of global adornment. Cathay will be the Major Sponsor.
In Gallery 9, from 21st October 2026 to 26th March 2027 (tentative), “Windows into Heaven: Religious Art Treasures from the State Tretyakov Gallery” (working title) will offer Hong Kong audiences an unusual opportunity to encounter the visual heritage of Eastern Orthodoxy. About 100 significant icon paintings and gemstone-studded devotional objects from the State Tretyakov Gallery will chart nearly a thousand years of Orthodox art. Organised into five thematic sections, the exhibition will look at the sacred function of icons and the role of imagery relating to Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints and biblical narratives in Orthodox worship and artistic tradition.
“Cultural Exchange and Buddhist Art along the Silk Roads” (working title) will complete the international trio. Scheduled for Gallery 8 from 9th December 2026 to 26th April 2027, the exhibition will be jointly presented with the Guimet–National Museum of Asian Arts in Paris. Nearly 150 masterpieces of Buddhist art — including sculpture, ivory carvings, glassware, goldwork and textiles — from Guimet’s celebrated holdings, together with key loans from museums in Mainland China, will trace the spread of Buddhism and the stylistic evolution of Buddhist art along the Silk Roads. Visitors will journey across Asia, from Afghanistan and China to the Korean Peninsula and Japan, between the 1st and 10th centuries, revealing how religious imagery developed over a millennium of movement, exchange and cultural interaction.
The Museum will also continue its practice of commissioning and presenting innovative work by Hong Kong artists in conversation with traditional Chinese culture. “Myth into Art: Fantastic Animals in the Digital Realm” (working title), on view from 13th May to 31st December 2026 in Gallery 7, will be the third thematic exhibition of new multimedia works by local creatives. Inspired by the architecture and mythical creatures of the Forbidden City, the show will investigate how today’s society relates to its cultural inheritance and how nature, technology and imagination intersect in the digital age.
In Gallery 6, from 24th June to 30th September 2026, HKPM will stage Hong Kong’s first major survey of artist, calligrapher and collector Wong Kwan Shut. “Joyful Encounters: The Art of Wong Kwan Shut” (working title) will present more than 60 important paintings and calligraphic works recently donated to the Museum by his wife, Mrs Wong Pong Chi-ying. The exhibition will chart Wong’s artistic development, shed light on the interplay between his collecting and his own practice and, as the fourth exhibition centred on a major donation, underline the growing scope and depth of HKPM’s permanent collection.
Alongside these new initiatives, several current or forthcoming hits will carry into 2026. The blockbuster special exhibition “Ancient Egypt Unveiled: Treasures from Egyptian Museums” has already attracted more than 75,000 visitors since opening on 20th November 2025 and will remain in Gallery 9 until 31 August 2026. Co-organised with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the show presents 250 objects from seven leading Egyptian museums together with new archaeological discoveries from Saqqara. Supported by Strategic Partner Bank of China (Hong Kong), with Cathay and UnionPay International as Major Sponsors, “Ancient Egypt Unveiled” will be promoted throughout 2026 through enhanced learning programmes and city-wide campaigns.
Other ongoing exhibitions will continue to offer audiences a wide range of experiences. “The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: The Art of Armaments—Qing Dynasty Military Collection from The Palace Museum” in Gallery 4, examining Qing military organisation, technology and martial culture, runs until 21st January 2026. In Gallery 8, “The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Treasures of the Mughal Court from the Victoria and Albert Museum”, which explores the artistic and cultural flowering of the Mughal courts in the 16th and 17th centuries — including a 57‑carat “fancy light pink” diamond — will be on view until 23rd February 2026. Both exhibitions are solely sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.
Responding to strong visitor interest, “The Ways in Patterns: An Immersive Digital Exhibition from the Palace Museum” in Gallery 7, exclusively sponsored by the Institute of Philanthropy, will be extended to 30th March 2026. “A History of China in Silk: The Chris Hall Collection at the Hong Kong Palace Museum” in Gallery 6 will continue until 11th May 2026. These two shows are particularly recommended for visitors keen on arts technology, Chinese design, textiles and fashion.
Together, the 2026 programme consolidates the Hong Kong Palace Museum’s role as a major cultural hub in the region, bringing world-class collections to local audiences, reframing Chinese art for contemporary times and deepening Hong Kong’s connections with both its own heritage and the wider world.
