Notable Philippine Paintings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Builders (1928) by Victor Edades, details below

  

 

   

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Jose T. Joya (1931-1995) is the 2003 National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts-Painting (posthumous). He pioneered Abstract Expressionism in the Philippines, and more importantly, translated the style according to a recognizably Philippine idiom. His abstracts are intelligent and innovative; bold, assertive, and masculine. Bright and exuberant, they celebrate color, often warm. 

It is unfortunate that he like several other important Philippine artists received his award posthumously, but it is just as well that the Philippine government eventually came around to awarding the man and his work.

Flight (1962) by Jose Joya

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Original member of the Thirteen Moderns founded in 1937, Cesar T. Legaspi (1917-1994) worked as a commercial artist until his retirement in 1968. Throughout the forties and fifties until the late sixties the first phase of his fine art could be described as Cubist works of social commentary about the economic hardship and poverty endemic in urban Philippines. His paintings from this period were, appropriately, dark. Already the artist displayed interest in modeling male musculature.

Beginning in the late sixties, he developed his own personal, meticulous and refined style of Transparent Cubism to dazzling effect. His principal subject, the male nude, he limned linearly in overlapping painstakingly diaphanous, interiorly lit planes. His style evinced a highly developed aestheticism. He is the 1990 National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts-Painting.

   

The Survivor (1972) by Cesar Legaspi