Arts, Culture and Heritage All Categories Arts, Culture and Heritage Education and Training Elderly Services Emergency and Poverty Relief Environmental Protection Family Services Medical and Health Rehabilitation Services Sports and Recreation Youth Development

The School of Nice wasthe last major art movements in post-war France and illustrates the city’s extraordinary contribution to the history of art in the 1960s-'70s. At the time, these artists were instantly identified as trailblazers, quickly becoming highly influential, and they were granted solo shows in major galleries in New York and Los Angeles.

With support from the Club’s Charities Trust, this year’s Le French May brought to Hong Kong over 100 works from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) in Nice, for the festival's opening exhibition “School of Nice – From Pop Art to Happenings”.

The exhibition featured a variety of works from MAMAC including paintings, photographs and sculptures, all demonstrating how artists in the southern French city were driven to extend their creativity into new artistic realms and adopted such movements as New Realism, Fluxus, Happenings and and Pop Art.

Running between 5 May and 27 May at Hong Kong City Hall, the exhibition was one of five Le French May programmes supported this year by the Trust. Other wereLes Forains, Ballet Urbain, a combination of classics and hip hop, ballet and acrobatics; one of China’s four great folk tales The Butterfly Lovers, presented as a classical piano duet performance with live sand-painting; Georges Bizet’s Carmen, a new interpretation of this world-famous opera by Opera Hong Kong; and Dreamlike Horses, a special puppetry performance co-presented by Le French May and Tai Kwun.

The Trust’s support for Le French May also included a series of community outreach and arts education activities which benefited some 38,000 citizens, while 1,000 students from less-privileged backgrounds received complimentary tickets. There were also special programmes for those with visual or hearing impairment. And in a new initiative, university students and fresh graduates were able to work with and learn from the festival’s world-class performers, curators and organisers.