Accession 2006-4 - Beatrice (Bea) Harding

Beatrice (Bea) Harding was born in Morden, Manitoba. She attended the University of Manitoba and obtained a degree in Home Economics and Education. After marrying William (Bill) Harding she moved to Swift Current and later Regina, Saskatchewan where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in visual arts from the University of Regina. Beatrice taught high school in Saskatchewan for 10 years. In 1961 her husband Bill joined the United Nations presenting the family with opportunities to travel widely. The family travelled and lived in Liberia, West Africa, East Africa, South America and the United States. In 1971, while a resident of the Philippines, Beatrice became inspired by the life and art of Manuel Rodriguez Sr. a graphic artist and instructor with whom she was taking a class. Her book Survival Through Art is about this man and the development of the field of Graphic Arts in the Philippines.

Beatrice kept journals about their stays in Liberia and Siberia, and in Guyana, South America Beatrice wrote articles for the CBC and for weekly newspapers. Later, in London, England Beatrice studied journalism at the Regent Institute of Journalism. She has also written for Asia Magazine and the Winnipeg Free Press. Beatrice is the author of A Centennial History of Glencross Burial Grounds, a booklet about the place where her great-grandparents settled in the 1880’s. In 1999 Beatrice published Top Hats and Head Loads in which she explores the art and cultural practices of the Liberian people and depicts the vast differences between two societies there; the Americo-Liberians of the coast and the indigenous of the Hinterlands.

Beatrice passed away in March 2006.