National Gallery in Singapore

I spend a night in Singapore, flying in from Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon and out the next morning to San Francisco.  I see that there is an impressionist exhibition from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris at the Singapore National Gallery and I head over there to enjoy some of my favorite art.  I am in for a great treat!

The Singapore National Gallery holds the world's largest collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian art, located in the former Supreme Court Building and City Hall joined together.  The Gallery has 64.000 square meters (689,000 square feet) of display space throughout the buildings and is itself an architectural treasure, beautifully restored and transformed into this new venue.

 Incredible restoration and merging of the two buildings

I head immediately to the special Impressionist exhibition.  I recognize many of the paintings (especially the Monets) from visits to Musee d'Orsay in Paris, but they're always great to see again (over and over).

 Impressionist special exhibition

Leaving the Impressionists behind, I wander into other galleries of the National Gallery and find more great treasures.  One exhibition contains works by two of Southeast Asia's leading 19th century artists Raden Saleh and Juan Luna.

 Raden Saleh

 Juan Luna

Other galleries focus on Chinese art and artists that combine Chinese and Western art traditions in their practices.

 Chinese artists

And, to round it all out, a collection of Southeast Asian art from all over the region.

 Southeast Asian regional art

There is so much here that I could go on for a long time, but we're coming to the end of this blog entry, having conveyed a sense of the National Gallery, and the end of this trip.  I'll wind up here and meet you at our next destination.