On a hot, sticky, drizzly afternoon, Dorothy Ha welcomed a visitor to her family’s longtime home on the eighth floor of a midcentury apartment building on a narrow street in Hong Kong’s To Kwa Wan district.
The paint on the weathered exterior was blistering, and a dusty staircase was the only way to ascend the elevatorless building. But inside the home lay a treasure trove of artworks crammed into closets, storage rooms, shelves and stacked on the floors.
The pieces — plates, prints, drawings, sculptures and photographs — were the work of Ha Bik Chuen, Dorothy’s father and a prominent artist who died in 2009 at 84. The home, which is currently occupied by one of her four brothers, continues to reveal a bounty of long-unseen artworks.
Dorothy’s visitor, Michelle Wun Ting Wong, an art historian, has for more than a decade meticulously pored over the art and other materials that Ha left in the apartment and his art studio after his death. On this Wednesday afternoon, Dorothy stumbled across another bundle of Ha’s print plates.
“There must be 40 or 50 here,” Wong gasped, adding to the 108 that had already been found. But Dorothy didn’t seem particularly surprised.
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