Several “old English”-style calligraphy works by local hand lettering artist Mr. Henry Kwok are now on display at the IFT Team Building. The exhibition – entitled “The Recultivation of Culture: An Exhibition of Creative Script Hand Lettering” – also features works by a few of Mr. Kwok’s students at IFT. It runs until 31 October.
The IFT Tourism and Hotel School launched in 2016 an old English calligraphy course led by Mr. Kwok. It is part of the Institute’s efforts to promote the development of Macao’s cultural and creative industries.
The Tourism and Hotel School runs study programmes of varying duration and level of specialisation for creative disciplines. The fields covered range from fine art painting to computer animation and the production of leather accessories. Some courses lead to certificates or diplomas.
Mr. Kwok mainly teaches students at IFT 17th-century script lettering and 19th-century Spencerian script. In his classes, students are not allowed to use copybooks; instead, they are asked to use blank paper and to develop their own unique styles.
“With copybooks, everybody’s hand lettering becomes beautiful but identical. I would rather allow students to develop their own artistic style,” he says.
Mr. Kwok praises the quality of works produced by his students at IFT. “Some students were very passionate about this art form. They would go to Hong Kong, Chinese Taiwan and even Europe to look for special types of ink,” he says.
Hand lettering has been a part of Mr. Kwok’s life since his teenage years. He has been an enthusiast of old English calligraphy for decades. The art form has seen a resurgence over the past few years, with more people interested in learning it, he says.
Ms. Elaine Lam is one of Mr. Kwok’s students with works featured at the IFT exhibition. She says it was the beauty of hand lettering that attracted her to the IFT course on old English calligraphy.
The initial stages of learning old English calligraphy were challenging, especially without any help from copybooks, Ms. Lam says.
“Mr. Kwok would ask us to use blank pieces of paper because he didn’t want us to be limited by examples from copybooks,” she recalls. “It was difficult at first because we were given too much freedom. But with his encouragement, we were eventually able to come up with some outstanding works.”
Ms. Lam says the IFT course on old English calligraphy is important to promote knowledge about this art form in Macao. “Before this course… people had no place where to learn it. Now, they have the chance to understand more about it,” she says.
