In Taichung, the vibrant city at the center of the west coast, lies the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA), the only government-supported fine arts museum that works diligently to map the trajectories of fine arts, and to preserve and study the art heritage of Taiwan.
Established in 1988, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMOFA) now encompasses 102,000 square meters of indoor exhibition space and outdoor sculpture parks, which makes the art museum the largest of its kind in Asia.
Offering more than thirty exhibitions every year, the museum's main building has three floors and a basement, a total floor area of 37,953 square meters, and exhibition areas titled Galleries A to F, the Art Street, E-Transit, and DigiArk.
DigiArk, a comprehensive networking and resource center that contains a rich digital audiovisual archive with information on digital artwork and media technologies, supports professional practitioners and researchers in various fields related to the digital arts.
The NTMOFA focuses its research work on Taiwan's fine arts and has a unique collection of artworks by Taiwanese artists from the 18th century to the present day. Comprising over 15,000 pieces, the museum's permanent collection includes works of art and historical documentation from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Modernist period, and the post-World War II period.
In addition to its extensive permanent collection, the museum periodically holds exhibitions on themes such as modern Taiwanese art and the development of local arts. The NTMOFA has held more than 900 large-scale exhibitions to this date, including the International Biennial of Print and Drawing Exhibition and the Taiwan International Documentary Festival.
The Taichung-based museum was heavily damaged by earthquakes on Sept. 21, 1999 and underwent reconstruction for the following five years. It was reopened in 2004 with the addition of a picture book area, an art studio, a teachers' resource center, a bookstore, and an outdoor sculpture garden.
The museum's library, which has also received an expansion in recent years, is abundant with textbooks, academic journals, electronic databases and multimedia learning resources for art-related subjects. It is now considered a leading source of materials for the study of Taiwanese art and history.