The University Museum and Art Gallery of HKU presents an exhibition featuring early paintings by the pioneering Hong Kong artist, Hon Chi-fun (b. 1922). The focus of this exhibition is a group of oil paintings dating to the late 1950s that the museum acquired in 1998. The book is the catalogue of this exhibition. Best known for his work as an abstract artist in acrylic and mixed media, this exhibition looks at the foundations of his later abstract practice through his early landscapes executed in oil on board, and a selection of calligraphic works and ink stones. Hon has a unique calligraphic style, and a deeply poetic sensibility. When shown together, his early oil paintings and calligraphy reveal the roots of Hon’s practice to lie in the classical traditions of western oils, and Chinese ink and brush.