Cartoon and Animation Art Exhibition opens in Ningbo Museum

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Category: Ningbo News

Published: Tuesday, 31 July 2012 08:27

To mark the 89th anniversary of China's cartoon production, Ningbo Museum opens a Cartoon and Animation Art Exhibition lasting from July 25 to September 25. Meanwhile, a classic cartoon movie show was going on in its lecture hall.

Dating back to nearly 90 years ago, Chinese animated film industry has made remarkable achievements. The organizers of the exhibition has selected 48 classic animated film posters, together with 11 precious manuscripts and 60 movie stills, allowing the audience to pay homage to Chinese animation pioneers.

The animated film boasts a long history in China. In ancient time, Chinese produced shadow-picture lantern and shadow play, which inspired today's animation filmmakers. Animated film in the true sense started in the early 1920s, when Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan, also known as the Wan brothers, pioneered the Chinese animation industry and became China's first animators. They produced Princess Iron Fan, which became China's first animated feature film of notable length and the 4th worldwide. The exhibition in Ningbo Museum displays the patriotic cartoons produced by the Wan brothers during the anti-Japanese Aggression War (1937-1945). Another industry founder, Qian Jiajun, created a number of China's earliest and award-winning cartoons and made outstanding contributions to the animated film industry. In 1940, he completed his maiden animation "Happiness in Peasant Family," a black and white movie with soundtracks, and won wide accolade. In this exhibition, two of Qian's masterpieces, namely "Why are the crows black?" and "The Turnip" are on display.

Since July 18, Ningbo Museum has been offering free movie shows of 39 classic animations, which was hailed by the public. To date, it has received nearly 2,500 viewers, half of whom were teenagers