The two recent Shanghai-themed comic exhibitions have invariably mentioned a name that everyone is not familiar with- Ding Hu, especially in the first exhibition of the opening of the Year of the Tiger held in the Cultural Square, "Painting Shanghai - Shanghai Style in Comics", Ding Hu was actually listed as the first person in the big exhibition, giving a strong and colorful recommendation, which had to make people start to look at this name carefully. Recently, the Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House published "Memoirs of forty Years of Art (1902-1945)" written by Ding Shu and edited by Ding Xia, which was even more surprising to find that Ding Hu not only cultivated a son like the comic master Ding Cong, but also was an active master of the maritime comics, illustrations, fine arts, education, advertising, photography, drama, recording, fashion, film and early Shanghai cultural salons who were active in the maritime comics, illustrations, fine arts, education, advertising, photography, drama, recording, fashion, and film circles nearly a hundred years ago.
Ding Ho
Born in Fengjing Town in 1891, Ding Hu liked to paint east and west in the countryside since he was a child, and he could keep accounts on behalf of others, and was praised by the locals as a "prodigy". In 1902, Ding Ho went to a pawn shop in Shanghai as an apprentice, still fond of art, the first teacher Cheng Zhou Xiang (this is also a master who was forgotten by art history), after assiduous self-study, publishing comics, needle and time, the tone is clear, quite popular with readers. He started out as a comic artist, excelled at sketching and sketching, which made him a prominent figure and organizer of the Shanghai comics scene in the 1920s.
He is the first provost of Shanghai Art College, the first art school in the modern sense in China, and has also taught art in many schools such as Tongji. As one of the initiators, he founded the art society "Pegasus Society". He was also employed by the advertising department of British American Tobacco in Shanghai to create posters, and is a pioneer in China's advertising industry. His works such as "Ding Shu Baimei Tu" and "Shanghai Fashion Baimei Tu Yong" have been all the rage and led the social trend.
"Ding Shu Hundred Beauty Map"
Ding Ho's home on Huangpi South Road in Shanghai was once full of celebrities, equivalent to the "wife's living room" of Lin Huiyin in Beiping at that time, which was called the "salon on the sea". Ye Qianyu, Lu Zhi itch, Zhang Guangyu, and Te Wei all lived in his family's alley, and like Wang Renmei, Li Lili, Zhou Xuan, Jin Yan, Nie Er, Huang Miaozi and others, they all regarded his home as a fixed place for gatherings, which was a famous landscape in Shanghai at that time. The signboard of China's first comic book club, the "Comic Club", hung on Ding Shu's doorstep.
Shanghai is the birthplace of modern Chinese commercial art, with the rapid development of industry and commerce, a large number of commercial art works are needed, such as advertising paintings, monthly plates, newspaper and book illustrations, etc. Ding Shu was ranked among the famous artists of commercial art creation at that time.
Mr. Wang Zengqi once said of Ding Shu's paintings: "The pen is intended to be between Chinese paintings and comics, and such paintings seem to be gone now. "It points out the unique charm of Ding's works.
Illustrations and magazine covers created by Ding Ho
In the 1918 publication of "Ding Shu BaimeiTu", the female image has opened up a new style of the times. Their short clothes and pants, combs and buns, fashionable and lovely; in their lives, they can ride horses, skate, sketch, play the violin, drive a car, and dance ballroom dances, reflecting the advanced aesthetic consciousness of new women and painters.
Ding's "Memoirs of forty Years of Art" was serialized in the Oriental Daily in August 1944 and contained hundreds of articles. Today, for the first time, these columns have been published in a collection, opening up a colorful picture of history for readers.
Professor Chen Zishan believes that Ding Hu's extremely extensive social travel, his unique observation and cognition of the maritime art world, are all displayed under his brilliant pen. Like the precious photos he took, they are both true and vivid, all of which are of great historical value and quite readable, and are indispensable for the study of Haipai culture.
Shanghai Beauty College Classroom © Ding Shu Family Collection
Liu Haisu and his wife Zhang Yunshi © Ding Shu family collection
Cheng Yanqiu (right) and Ding Shu © Ding Shu Family Collection
"Forty Years of Art Memoirs", together with Chen Dingshan's "Old Stories of Chunshen", Chen Julai's "Trivia of Anzhi Characters" and Zheng Yimei's palm works, all of which are written by the author's personal opinions and hold the theory of Ping Yun and Hou Dao, in which the content of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, the friendship between teachers and students with Zhou Xiang, the process of hiring models, and the alias of Liu Haisu's "art traitor" can play a historical role and correct some legends in the community.
New woman © on a motorcycle Ding Ho family collection
Zhou Xuan © Ding Ho family collection
Zhou Xuan and Ding Shu © Ding Shu family collection
Ding Shu and Ding Cong © Ding Shu family collection
The book publishes more than sixty old photos, some taken by Ding Hu, and there are also gift photos of Friends from Ding Hu's collection, some of which also have the autographs of the donors, which have survived the war and chaos and remain to this day. The editor Ding Xia is the grandson of Ding Shu, and he and his friends have painstakingly searched for evidence to mark the characters in old photos one by one, which is also admirable.
Source: Thoughtful Shanghai