Jeremias Elizalde Navarro

National Artist for Visual Arts (1999)

LIFE
Jeremias Elizalde Navarro

• Born on May 22, 1924 in Antique

• His father is Emiliano Navarro and his mother is Paz
Elizalde
• His wife is Virginia Ty-Navarro famously known
nationwide for her sculpture Statue of Our Lady Queen of
Peace also called Our Lady of EDSA Shrine and is
located in Ortigas.
Statue of Our Lady Queen of Peace
• Came to Manila when he won a one-year scholarship at
the School of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines.
Studied as a Ramon Roces Publication Scholar in 1947.
• Transferred and finished his degree of Bachelor of Fine
Arts major in painting at the University of Santo Tomas in
1951. While studying at the university he was also an art
editor for the university newspaper The Varsitarian.
• He was very passionate to create a new ways of art
• He experimented different kinds of painting using oil,
acrylic, watercolor. He also tried making sculpture and
mixed media. He uses the "incision painting“.
Incision painting - method that is applied on the top
surface by carving out the artist’s desired pattern on
the stone materials and layering paint or plaster on the
stone surface.
• His first solo exhibit at the Philippine Art Gallery in 1954
consisted of woodcuts and construction pieces of mixed
media, using metal, wood and other found objects.
• In 1957, he was invited by the Japanese Chapter of the
Youth Association of Asia to visit Japan. This visit exposed
him to traditional Japanese art which greatly influenced
him.
• He continued to paint and sculpt while working at an
advertising agency, eventually becoming the creative
director and handling its major multinational accounts.
• In 1967, he represented the Philippines at the Sao Paolo
Biennale in Brazil in the category of sculpture. In the early
1970’s he headed the creative department of the Design
Center of the Philippines. He was responsible for the
Philippine exhibits in key cities around the world.
• In the late 1970’s, he chose to work as a full time painter
and sculptor.
• In 1989, he became the first Filipino artist to be
represented at the Yayasan Dharma Seni Museum Neka
in Bali, Indonesia.
• In 1995, he held his retrospective exhibition at the
Metropolitan Museum of Manila. He continued to paint
and hold one man shows in Manila until his death in June
1999. His cause of death is bone cancer.
• J. Elizalde Navarro was given the National Artist award for
Visual Arts in 1999. His career spans more than 50 years
of painting, sculpting and other forms of visual art. His
watercolors and work on paper are often overlooked
given the wide scope of work that Navarro did. Hence,
The Mercier Gallery of Fine Arts chose to concentrate on
this genre of the artist.
WORKS
Singkil
Portrait
 My
Masks
Homage
of Dojie
Constellation