As cavernous as the Leon Gallery is, the museum-quality lots with impeccable provenance of the Spectacular Mid-Year Auction 2017: The Grand Independence Day Sale downsizes it, as today’s preview at 6 p.m. with cocktails effortlessly shows.
By June 10 at 2 p.m., we will know if any of its lots have broken the record set by Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s Fish Harvest at Dawn that hammered for P52.6 million plus premium at a Leon Gallery auction.
Among them are the following curator’s picks.
Fabian de la Rosa’s Hat Weavers of rural women making hats, acquired by American actor George O’Brien when he visited the Philippines after the Japanese war, returns from Hollywood and goes on the block through the Leon Gallery sale.
Vicente Manansala’s striking work, Pila sa Bigas, shows five anxious rural women, one carrying a baby, after marketing and then queuing for scarce rice during a shortage in the 1970s. Rendered in indigeneous cubism in folksy colors, this is a modern interpretation of realism as initiated by the Thirteen Moderms of which Manansala was a founding member.
I had my first close encounter with Jaime de Guzman’s alarming surreal vision in the Metamorphosis I mural at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This power does not diminish in smaller scale in the sale’s gothic Gift of Fossils.
In a dystopian world, vestiges of life — a shell and a human skull broken into two — are shown as the remaining traces of former habitation. In thick, energetic brushstrokes and unsparing figuration, de Guzman is revelatory as to the post-historical outcome of a planet locked in a cycle of extinction and regeneration.
Jose Joya’s gigantic mural, Pagdiriwang, at the main lobby of the Plenary Hall of the Philippines International Convention Center executed with the assistance of upcoming artists of the period including Benedicto “Bencab” Cabrera never fails to awe. In 1964, even before Pagdiriwang was conceptualized, nine works by Joya represented the Philippines at the 32nd Venice Biennale. Five others are in important collections and institutions, three are whereabouts unknown, with the elusive ninth being Carcass. This painting with “palette-knife fury” now makes its way to this highly anticipated sale.
Primarily through the Diaphanous and Permutations series, Romulo Olazo introduced transparency, lyricism and grandeur to Philippine modern abstraction. Permutation Series II No. 118 (B-XX), exemplified in shapely forms and curvilinear lines that interlock with or echo each other, is an incantation of vibrance, fluidity and subtlety — a harmony of visual music.
Considered as one of the more successful mid-career artists, Marcel Antonio is notable for a body of figurative work characterized by an Edenic innocence, a Picassoesque beauty. In Little Drops of Time, Antonio plumbs the mythic memory to enflesh a story of how time came to be. Here, two women seem to be competing over the attention of a man. The dejected one drops water on a basin, creating, in effect, “ripples of time,” which gets stratified between past, present and future. From hereon, separation, suffering and death will be a given. Nothing and no one will be permanent and definite: All have to bow to time’s tyrannical rule.
And the largest Ang Kiukok ever offered at auction in recent memory. The Property of an Important Institution, The Fishermen is Kiukok at the peak of his powers. Known for his “fusion of cubism, surrealism and expressionism,” Kiukok was influenced by Mexican modernist Rufino Tamayo and Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, enabling him to develop an unmistakable style all his own.
The Fishermen depicts three men straining to pull a net heavy with big fishes. Art historian Ramon Villegas describes it graphically: “Their muscles struggle against the opposing forces of the weighted net. The sun is high in the sky, a red copper orb against a sky browner than their skin made pale by the cold water. Sweat pour from their lean bodies. In their thoughts are thanks for the bounty that makes a living possible.”
While he signed it “Kiukok,” interestingly, it is also a modern-day “Letras y Figuras” as the artist’s name “Ang” is discernibly spelled out in the painting.
The proceeds estimated at P50 million from the sale will go to charity.
History comes to life with a First Edition Noli Mi Tangere from an esteemed South American private collection.
The ornate Tampinco bed created for Maximo Viola, the “man who saved the Noli Me Tangere,” is the furniture-highlight of this remarkable sale. Laden with design and purpose, the bed is carved from narra by Tampinco, and has a design theme of tropical palm leaves. Among his native motifs were the anahaw, areca palm and bamboo.
In recognition for its efforts to preserve and promote Philippine visual and functional arts, many of them historical and religious, including the works of first National Artist, Fernando Amorsolo, The Fernando C. Amorsolo Foundation has honored Leon Gallery to receive a plaque in recognition for its Ongoing Commitment in Supporting the Foundation.
View the catalog for the Spectacular Mid-Year Auction 2017 now available online from which this writeup was largely based.
WHEN JUDGES’ DECISION IS NOT FINAL. Senior artist/educator Herminigildo Pineda comments, as shown here verbatim: “The decision of judges is final. We cannot change, we can’t do anything and nothing but to follow.
“All end the result of 13th GSIS National Art Competition. My question is? What if the artist used another medium aside from the required material of the rules and regulations.
“This is our observation which bag the Grand Prize in last night competition. The artist use other medium aside from acrylic and oil, he used the medium of smoke... smoke coming from traditional lampara which popularized by one our noted Artist. It so happened to be one of the Jurors on the prestigious art tilt. What comes next?
“Asking other artists what shall we do if the artist violate the ruling process. Can the art community react on this issue? Is the juror aware about the medium? If he is. Does he know the rules and regulation required by the organizer? Hoping we could enlighten us, by merely inquiring about the issue.”
This writer thinks the judging had been biased. And the judges’ decision rule is unfair.
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Breaking records
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