On February 6, an exhibition commemorating the 120th birthday of Ma Gongyu was unveiled in Shanghai Library, which was jointly hosted by Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles, East China Normal University, the Shanghai Research Institute of Culture and History, and the People's Government of Wenzhou.
The exhibition is unveiled in Shanghai Library.
The exhibition contained over 100 Ma's calligraphic and seal-cutting works and paintings, as well some historical materials about and pictures of him, some of which were accessible to the public for the first time. The opening ceremony of the exhibition was followed by a seminar of the same theme. The participants had a heated discussion of Ma's life story, circle of friends, teaching, artistic achievements, and contribution to Chinese calligraphic development.
The exhibition attracts many visitors.
From the 1920s to the 1930s, Shanghai led the calligraphic trend in China, producing an important impact on the pattern of Chinese calligraphy and the aesthetic taste at that time. Among the well-known painters and calligraphers gathered in Shanghai were some pace-setters in the country's art circle and Ma Gongyu was one of the most outstanding of them.
The exhibition contains over 100 Ma's calligraphic and seal-cutting works and paintings.
Ma was born in 1894 in the Ma's family in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, a family known for its calligraphic and painting skills for a succession of two hundred years. From 1928 to 1936, he worked in Daxia University (today's East China Normal University) as the clerical officer and a professor of Chinese, making important contributions to the founding and development of the university. The recently discovered tablet inscriptions about Qunxiantang (lit. Hall for People of Virtue) and Siquntang (lit. Hall in Commemoration of University President Wang Boqun), the two most important historical buildings in ECNU, and the names of Daxia University's newspaper and journals, such as Daxia, Daxia Weekly, and Economics Series, were all written by him, suggesting that he was then an important figure in the university. Today, the three big Chinese characters he composed, ban gong lou (lit. office building), are still carved on the facade of the office building at ECNU's Zhongbei campus.
The three big Chinese characters he composed, ban gong lou (lit. office building), are still carved on the facade of the office building at ECNU's Zhongbei campus.
Ma Yizhao, a grandnephew of Ma Gongyu, donated some historical materials about Daxia University kept by Ma Gongyu to the Archives of ECNU. Three books about him, A Collection of Ma Gongyu's Calligraphic Works, Historical Materials about the Exhibition of Ma Gongyu's Calligraphic Works, and Annals of Ma Mengrong and Ma Gongyu, and a six-episode documentary, "The Three-century-old History of a Family of Calligraphy and Paintings", were released at the same time.
