On August 18th, the day after the Shanghai Book Fair was in full swing, an exhibition of manuscripts of a painter and a history of art education in Shanghai, "Re-reading Harding: Lectures on Harding's Painting Techniques", opened in Shanghai Xinhua Center New Space. At the same time, "Harding Painting Technique Lecture Manuscript" was first published by Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House and met with readers at the book fair.
Born in Shanghai, Harding (1923-2003) is a famous Chinese watercolor painter and art educator. In 1943, he entered the "Chong Ren Studio" opened by Zhang Chongren and studied watercolor painting and oil painting. Since then, he has devoted his life to the study of watercolor language, forming a unique painting style, which has played an extremely important role in the development of Watercolor art in China.
In the 1960s, the Harding family took a group photo in the garden of the Harding Studio
In 2014 and 2015, the China Art Palace and the Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute successively held "Filling in the Blanks, Adding Colors - A Retrospective Exhibition of Harding's Artistic Achievements" and "Here the Sunshine Is Shining - Harding Documenta Exhibition", combing Harding's "artistic context" in the development and education of Western art in Shanghai from different angles. After two years of "Re-reading Harding" in the form of exhibitions and texts, the perspective focuses on Harding's influence on art education, and 56 precious manuscripts that have hardly been made public before, including 34 sketches and 22 watercolors, are also exhibited, and 20 watercolor masterpieces are also on display.
Among the exhibitions that opened yesterday, the most special is an old book wall called the "Bridge of Books". The wall is an installation of 64 books of Mr. Harding's art teaching books published in the 1950s, including a handwritten letter written by a student on January 27, 1965, beginning with the title of "Dear Harding Teacher." In an era when art education resources were extremely scarce, Harding's "How to Draw Portraits" and "How to Draw Pencil Drawings" were welcomed by readers across the country as soon as they were published. According to incomplete statistics, "How to Draw Portraits" has been reprinted 15 times, with a total print number of 159,000 copies; "How to Draw Pencil Drawings" has been reprinted 5 times, with a total print number of 165,000 copies.
Mr. Harding's daughter Harvey introduced to the surging news reporter that the exhibition collected 65 classic old books of different eras and different editions across the country, and met with the audience with this unique installation work, intending to express the respect for Mr. Harding, publishers and countless readers over the decades in a contemporary art form.
The "Bridge of Books" not only shows The connection between Harding and past students and art lovers, but also the bridge of the People's Fine Arts Publishing House from "How to Draw Portraits", "How to Draw Pencil Drawings" and "Preliminary Watercolor Painting Techniques" to the latest publication of "Harding Painting Technique Lectures". The new book, released yesterday, selects the theories and techniques of painting from the first three books, and selects some of his representative works. On the one hand, the publication of the book is to meet the needs of society, so that a bestseller of the year becomes a long-selling book; at the same time, it is also a tribute to the classics in a special and contemporary way.
At the seminar after the opening ceremony yesterday, Chen Zhiqiang, the academic adviser of the exhibition, showed a very precious note, and the owner of the note was Zhao Qiming, a former student of Harding. From February 28, 1961 to January 15, 1962, when he was studying watercolor painting from Harding in Shanghai, Zhao Qiming shorthanded Mr. Ha's class speeches in each class, and transcribed the dense shorthand on a notebook he had customized every weekend after returning home from the American College.
Zhao Qiming recalled the past and still could not hide his excitement: "I did not dare to 'embezzle' the teacher's thoughts, and my feelings were marked with a red pen. Zhao Qiming, who once had the ideal of being a journalist, later entered the Shanghai banknote printing factory as a design worker for the renminbi, but it was his rapid record, accurate memory and well-preserved respect for teachers and art after seven or eight moves that became the "restoration" of "Mr. Harding de Lecture" on the scene of Harding watercolor teaching half a century ago.
The exhibition will run until September 17.
More than fifty years ago, after studying Harding's writings, a reader wrote an unsent "letter" in the book.