The National Artists of the Philippines

The National Artists of the Philippines

Abdulmari Asia Imao
Sculpture (2006)

Abdulmari Asia Imao, a native of Sulu, is a sculptor, painter, photographer, ceramist, documentary film maker, cultural researcher, writer, and articulator of Philippine Muslim art and culture.

Through his works, the indigenous ukkil, sarimanok and naga motifs have been popularized and instilled in the consciousness of the Filipino nation and other peoples as original Filipino creations.

His U.P. art education introduced him to Filipino masters like Guillermo Tolentino and Napoleon Abueva, who were among his mentors.

With his large-scale sculptures and monuments of Muslim and regional heroes and leaders gracing selected sites from Batanes to Tawi-tawi, Imao has helped develop among cultural groups trust and confidence necessary for the building of a more just and humane society.

Selected works:

Industry Brass Mural, Philippine National Bank, San Fernando, La Union
Mural Relief on Filmmaking, Manila City Hall
Industrial Mural, Central Bank of the Philippines, San Fernando, La Union
Sulu Warriors (statues of Panglima Unaid and Captain Abdurahim Imao), 6 ft., Sulu Provincial Capitol


1931 - 1995
Philippine National Artist for Visual Arts

The name of Jose Joya (1931 - 1995) is synonymous to the best in Philippine abstract expressionist art. He is an artist of innumerable achievements.
His countless awards include the Patnubay ng Kalinangan Award during the 4^th Centennial of the City of Manila and received the Gawad CCP for Visual Arts in 1991. He was named one of the Ten Outstanding Asean Artists in 1992. Has had innumerable exhibits in China, Switzerland, Germany, England, Hong Kong, the US and Spain.
He produced an excellent body of bold and lyrical works. Bypassed several times during his lifetime, he was posthumously conferred the title of National Artist for Visual Arts last June 25, 2003, by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

High Noon Breeze
December 15, 1975
Oil on Paper
14" x 22"
Original Frame with Joya Signature
PRIVATE COLLECTION

In 1976 Jose Joya stayed awhile in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental and tried his art successfully on ceramics working hand in hand with world-renowned Anaware Ceramics Factory.

YA on CERAMICS

Abstract Art on Ceramic Plate
1976
13" Dia.
Code: JJAC001


Original Frame /Signature & Date on Back of Plate


Abstract Art on Ceramic Jar & Plate
1976
Jar 10" Ht.
JJAC002
Plate 12" Dia.
JJAC003

ANG KIUKOK (1931-2005)

ANG KIUKOK: The Cynic, the Idealist By: Arlene Ang

Ang Kiukok is undoubtably one of the most prominent painters in contemporary Philippine art. He was born in 1931 in Davao City , the only son of Chinese immigrants, in a brood of five daughters. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Sto. Tomas from 1952-54.

In 1965 he travelled to New York with the late Vicente Manansala, who was both mentor and friend. This proved to be a turning point in the development of his career as an artist. Culture-shocked by the stark alienation and dehumanisation he found in the American lifestyle, Kiukok began filling his canvases with distorted, robotic men reminiscent of Francis Bacon's. The change, however, caused the public to turn their interests elsewhere. Strongly marked by disillusionment and uncanny inner vision, these paintings were to be shunned for years to come.

In time, however, as he persisted in developing an expressionist style, appreciation slowly developed within the Filipino public. Since then he has enjoyed eminent success in and around Asia, with exhibits in Manila, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, as well as in the Netherlands, Canada and the United States. His works have also been recently selected for auction at Southeby's and Christie's.

Ang Kiukok's success stems mainly from the honesty of his art. Safe, soothingly-pretty subjects are not his cup of tea. He knows life isn't a bed of roses...at least, not roses without thorns. He doesn't try to deceive buyers and collectors with cheap publicity stunts or insist that a wallpaper motif is art nouveau. Though, of course, some buyers do look for such. One particular "collector" insisted that Mr. Ang paint him a large blue sailboat to match his blue bedroom.

It is one of Ang Kiukok's strengths that he never allowed himself to be bulldozed by the public's whims, even at the risk of remaining unrecognised and unpatronised throughout his lifetime--a risk he forced himself to accept as a matter of course right from the start. He does not waste time and paint dwelling on the native festivals so stereotypical of Philippine art. Nor does he paint flowery scenes and feathery ballerinas. Almost every painting seems twisted with outrage or internal suffering, giving voice to the Lowellian theme, "I hear my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell, as if my hand were at its throat... I myself am hell...."

In a third-world country where religion, in Marxist terms, is opium for the people, even his depiction of Christ's crucifixion does not seem to suggest salvation. Impaled with thorn-like nails usually set against a backdrop of convoluted junk, his Christs may be dead but they are still very much in agony. "Yes, he died on the cross for us. But look around you--everything goes on as if nothing has happened. He died in vain, people don't really give a damn." Even his "Pietas" are shrouded in a darkness where Mother Mary grieves alone over her son's dead body in a wasteland of piled refuse.

Screaming figures bespeak both outrage and agony, but suffering does not liberate man from his fate. By contrast, the screams depicted in "Man on Fire" literally warn against playing with matches. But realisation has come too late for these burning figures.

Dogfights and cockfights depict man's inhumanity to man. Soldiers are reared and trained like cattle to fight wars that heads of state launch at a whim.

Recently Ang Kiukok's paintings seem to have mellowed to less violent subjects such as harmless-looking clowns. Contorting themselves comically or juggling balls for the delight of their audience, they seem at first much more benign than his earlier works. But the joke is on the viewer, because it is he who is being both observed and aped. The clowns grin sarcastically or are bowed in mute despair. The richly-clad harlequin with vacant smiling eyes, the bashful joker, the vacuous deep-thinker make up just another part of the sorry cast strutting the world's stage.

More tender subjects project a different image of the artist: sensitive, passionate, nurturing. His "Mother and Child" images exude an inexpressible love, and the more rarely seen "Lovers" are entwined in a trance-like union, stripped of individual identity. A more detached Kiukok is revealed in his still lifes. An empty bottle or cabinet suggests a void of existential agony. The objects' seeming complacency about themselves mocks the viewer, "Are you so free and well-off, after all?"

Ang’s major works include:

• 1962 – Pieta, which won him the bronze medal in the 1st International Art Exhibition in Saigon
• 1969 – Geometric Landscape
• 1972 – Last Supper
• 1974 – Cockfight
• 1976 – Crucifixion
• 1979 – Seated Figure, which was auctioned at Sotheby’s, Singapore
• 1987 – Mother and Child

Achievements:

• 1961 – Outstanding Overseas Chinese in Art Award
• 1976 – Outstanding Citizen, awarded by the City of Manila
• 1978 – UST Outstanding Alumnus Award
• 1978 – Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, from the City of Manila
• 1980 – Mobil Art Award
• 2002 – Jose Rizal Award for Excellence, from The Manila Times and the Kaisa Foundation

Cesar Legaspi (1917-1994)

Cesar Legaspi, honored as a National Artist in Visual Arts in 1990, is considered the pioneer of neo-realism in the Philippines. Aside from the monochromatic works in his early years, he exploited the full potential of color in his paintings. A proponent of modern art in the country, Legaspi developed cubism in the Philippine context. He was also identified as one of the Thirteen Moderns, a group of modernists led by Victorio C. Edades whose works went against the conservative academic art of that period.

Legaspi was born to Manuel Legaspi and Rosario Torrente on April 2, 1917 in Tondo, Manila. He took up painting for one term at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts before he decided to take commercial art courses instead. There he received medals for perspective and illustration projects. He earned his Certificate of Proficiency in 1936, after which he continued his education in art under Pablo Amorsolo. He went to Madrid in 1953 and pursued Art Studies under a scholarship at the Cultura Hispanic until 1954. He also went to Paris to study at the Academie Ranson for one month under Henri Goetz.

Back in the Philippines, he had his first one-man show at the Luz Gallery in 1963. While this led to an active phase with his major pieces, he also worked as a magazine illustrator and artistic director at an advertising agency. He finally left the agency in 1968 to focus on his painting.

During his career as an artist, he had the opportunity to be part of several exhibits abroad, including the First Plastic Arts Conference in Rome in 1953, the Sao Paolo Biennial in Graphic Arts in 1967 and 1969, and the Wraxall Gallery in London with Filipino artists Malang and Bencab in 1982. Apart from this, he holds the record of five retrospective exhibitions at different venues: the Museum of Philippine Art in 1978, the National Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in 1988, and the Luz Gallery and the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1990. He was an active member of the Art Association of the Philippines and was part of the Neo-Realists. He was also the head of the Saturday Group artists from 1978 until his death on April 7, 1994.

Legaspi’s major works include:

• 1945 – Man and Woman br> • 1947 – Gadgets

Achievements:

• 1944 – 4th Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Gadgets
• 1948 – 1st Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Sick Child
• 1949 – 4th Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Planters
• 1949 – 1st Prize, Manila Club Art Exhibition, for Stairway to Heaven
• 1950 – Honorable Mention in the Manila Grand Opera House Exhibition, for Symphony
• 1951 – 3rd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Ritual
• 1972 – Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, from the City of Manila
• 1981 – Critics’ Choice Award for Five Outstanding Living Artists
• 1990 – Gawad CCP para sa Sining Award, from the Cultural Center of the Philippines

Kulay-Diwa is a venue for Philippines and Southeast Asian Contemporary Art. Inaugurated on February 7, 1987, Kulay-Diwa, is strategically located within a cluster of communities South of Manila. It has five independent exhibition areas able to accommodate large-scale works and a garden ideal for programs, performances and sculpture installations. The goals of the gallery are to discover and promote the works of young, talented but deserving Filipino Artists and to foster cultural interaction and exchanges with the local regions and other countries.

Kulay (Colour); Diwa (Spirit, Thought)

Cesar Legaspi, "The Year That Was",

Oil on Canvas,33 x 26 inches, 1987

Cesar Legaspi, "Phantasm"

Oil, 20 x 25 cms., 1978

Cesar Legaspi, "Untitled"

oil 20 x 25 cms., 1979