2/15/22, 4:23 PM Philippine Visual Arts During the Third Republic (1946-1972)

Cultural Center of the Philippines

 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

PHILIPPINE ART

Philippine Visual Arts During the Third Republic (1946-1972)

The postwar era opened with the country reeling from the aftereffects of World War II. With the country in shambles, Filipinos trained their sights on how to
rebuild their lives. True to the adage that “modernity can have no respect even for its own past” and that meaning “must be defined from within the maelstrom
of change” (Harvey 1990, 11-12), the modernists sought to disassemble the past and create a new language of art that could rightly express the changing times. It
is in this context that the modernists in the postwar era continued to reject the serenity posed by conservative idioms, preferring to explore a new reality
characterized by unrest and the physicality of form. They did this by harnessing the techniques of distortion and abstraction.

The period opened up opportunities for Filipino artists to study abroad, which exposed them to new trends in the West. Many Filipino artists went to Spain,
France, Italy, Canada, and the United States on travel and study grants. An important publication that fueled the popularity of modern art among Filipino artists
was Life magazine, which was brought into the country after the war (Torres 1992, 117). Life magazine featured the works of Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Kandinsky,
Mondrian, Buffet, and Dubuffet, and the New York abstract expressionists (Torres 1992, 117). Having been exposed to these trends, the modernists took
Edades’s prewar post-Impressionist style toward abstraction. Artists who were working in this style and direction were referred to as the Neo-Realists. Artists
of this movement were Hernando R. Ocampo, Ramon Estella, Vicente Manansala, Victor Oteyza, Cesar Legaspi, and Romeo Tabuena. They were later joined by
Nena Saguil, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Manuel Rodriguez Sr, Cenon Rivera, Jeremias Elizalde Navarro, Jose Joya, Lee Aguinaldo, and David Cortez Medalla.

Napoloen Abueva, Allegorical Harpoon, 1964, Cultural Center of the Philippines Collection

Unlike modern painting that made its entrance in the 1930s, the challenge to Guillermo Tolentino’s conservative style came later in the 1950s in the person of
his student Napoleon Abueva (Guillermo 1992, 323). While Tolentino’s style was classical and romantic, Abueva’s works denied idealization, utilizing slight
distortion and elongation as he trained his attention on plastic form. He transformed materials such as wood and stone into forms that were sensuous and
playful. His Allegorical Harpoon, 1964, and Alabaster City, 1971, reveal his foray into stylization and abstraction. Abueva’s large body of work done in a wide
spectrum of materials and diverse sculptural language demonstrate his consistent desire to challenge conventions while he explored the malleable qualities of
the material at hand. This tenacity and his rearing of several generations of subsequent sculptors through his teaching at the University of the Philippines led to
Abueva’s being recognized as the youngest recipient of the National Artist Award.

The shadow cast by the 1930s debate between art for art’s sake (l’art pour l’art) and art in service of society lingered through the early postwar years. The most
acerbic debates on this subject were fought out in literature in the early 1940s when Salvador P. Lopez penned his Literature and Society, 1940, defending the
purposive nature of art against Jose Garcia Villa’s espousal of modernist expression as self-referential. In the visual arts, art for art’s sake became one of the
impetus in the development of abstraction. Abstract art, in its insistence on freedom of self-expression and form rather than content, took the direction of art
for art’s sake where the purpose was to produce art for its own sake and not for any edifying, utilitarian, or moral lessons. The Neo-Realists regarded plastic
reality rather than mimetic representation as more important and insisted that a work should be judged by how it holds up as design rather than as portrayal of
reality in every detail (Torres 1992, 118).

In the early postwar years, artists like H.R. Ocampo, Cesar Legaspi, and Galo B. Ocampo continued to harness the power of art’s capacity to depict the
deplorable conditions of postwar reality. H.R. Ocampo’s early works were overtly social realist. He depicted poverty and decadence by distorting figures and
using violent, jarring colors. Aside from his social realist works, H.R. Ocampo also produced surreal pieces, harnessing the subconscious in works like Nude
with Flower and Candle, 1948, his winning entry in the first Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) competition, and Ancestors, 1951. Ocampo eventually
moved on to less expressionistic works, concentrating on form and its plasticity, as in 53-G (Beefsteak), 1953. His works from 1952 onward became devoid of
subject matter. To underline this shift further, these pieces were merely assigned numbers and letters as titles (Torres 1992, 153).

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H.R. Ocampo, 53-G (Beefsteak), 1953, Ateneo Art

Gallery Collection (Photo from Ateneo Art Gallery)

Equally powerful were Cesar Legaspi’s own social realist works that depicted ordinary people as victims of an oppressive society. The mood of his early works
were described as pensive, grim, and devoid of humor (Torres 1992, 150-51). Legaspi worked on monochrome in this early phase, but most of his works
thereafter were characterized by the expressionistic use of color and a wide variety of subject matter—from dancers to flower gardens and street scenes. In the
1960s, his works showed a decided shift from expressionism to more structural and plastic qualities as he experimented with rock and quarry forms.

Galo B. Ocampo appropriated religious elements in Philippine culture, such as scenes of flagellation, to weave a surrealist vision of human suffering and
damnation. Avoiding radical distortion, the modernist tendencies in his works are evidenced by his subjective use of color (Torres 1992, 141). Still retaining the
tension evoked in his Flagellant series, Galo Ocampo reworked spatial composition in the mid-1950s by adding a stained glass effect as decorative element to
receding spaces within his pictures (Guillermo 1994, 379).

H.R. Ocampo, Legaspi, and Galo Ocampo moved on to more formal compositions in the mid-1950s. While this trend may suggest that they had succumbed to
the modernist’s insistence on form over content, it has been argued that “neo-realism embodied a deeper political meaning and that the shearing off of visual
signs is symptomatic of a worldwide shift in the nature of signification brought about by the exhaustion of nationalist narratives” (Beller 2004, 18). Jonathan
Beller, in his article on H.R. Ocampo’s works, argues that this type of visuality, which is not subservient to a signifier, offered a realm of freedom (Beller 2004,
32). Therefore, H.R. Ocampo’s fluid interlocking shapes in Politico Cancer, 1958, can be read not as inchoate forms but as live, pulsing, shifting forms that allow
the eye “to dance in a relatively free quest for new orders and meanings” (Beller 1999, 488).

The postwar period was also witness to the founding of art institutions that helped advance the cause of the modernists. The Art Association of the Philippines
was founded in 1948 by Purita Kalaw-Ledesma while the Philippine Art Gallery (PAG) was founded in 1950 by a group of women writers headed by Lydia
Villanueva-Arguilla. The AAP and PAG supported modern art through regular art exhibitions and competitions. Neo-Realists working closely with Arguilla came
to be known as PAG artists.

Carlos V. Francisco, Kaingin, 1948, first-prize winner at the first national art competition organized by
the Art Association of the Philippines, Solita Camara-Besa Collection

In the first AAP competition held in 1948, all six prizes were awarded to the modernists. First place went to Carlos “Botong” Francisco for his work Kaingin,
1945, which depicted men and women readying the land for slash-and-burn farming. The grit and more structural approach to figuration in Botong’s workstood
as a paradigmatic counterpoint to Amorsolo’s idiomatic pastoral scenes. By bagging the first place, Francisco’s work served notice to the public that art was
moving in a modernist direction. Demetrio Diego’s Capas, 1948, and Diosdado Lorenzo’s Japanese Inhumanities, 1947, secured the second and fifth places in
this competition. Diego’s work is a poignant rendition of the victims of the Death March in Bataan rendered in pale and somber colors. Lorenzo used vivid
expressionistic colors, such as striking oranges and intense yellows, to dramatize wartime atrocities. Other winning works were Vicente Manansala’s
Banaklaot, 1948, where fishermen bringing their boats ashore with the vessels are depicted in distorted forms; Cesar Legaspi’s Sick Child, 1948, which
highlighted the non-objective use of color; and H.R. Ocampo’s Nude with Flower and Candle, 1948, a surreal work replete with Freudian symbols that many
found enigmatic and sick (Torres 1992, 20). To the consternation of the conservatives, the modernists again swept the major prizes in the next three
competitions sponsored by the AAP.

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Two exhibitions were put up in the early 1950s to further convince the public that modern art was not an aberration nor simply a trend (Torres 1992, 122). The
AAP sponsored the first Neo-Realist exhibition in 1950 while PAG put up the first exhibition of non-objective art in 1953. The first effort to break through the
international art scene was organized by PAG through an exhibition of paintings and sculptures of 21 artists shown in 1953-54. This exhibition traveled to New
York and Washington with the help of Philippine diplomatic agencies and was twice noted by The New York Times and listed in The New Yorker magazine
(Torres 1992, 122).

Among the Neo-Realists, Manansala, Tabuena, and Magsaysay-Ho did not completely obliterate subject matter. In their works, images of Philippine urban and
rural life are still discernible and often depicted in bright, festive colors.

Vicente Manansala worked in the cubist style that presented a new reality by fragmenting objects and rearranging them. He was a student of Fernand Leger
whose works exemplified movement and the use of volume and color. Manansala developed his own type of transparent cubism characterized by shifting and
overlapping diaphanous planes and forms that were faceted like glass. He stayed close to the figurative tradition, simplifying his figures but not totally deleting
them. His themes, such as vendors, native fruits, vegetables, dried fish, and street scenes, were evocative of local urban culture. His Madonna of the Slums,
1950, depicted poverty in urban Philippine society. His colors were not dull but vibrant and sensuous. Even as he continued to experiment with more simplified
forms, his works never lost their emotional impact.

Romeo Tabuena, Grey Mist, 1953, Cultural Center of the Philippines Collection

Romeo Tabuena was a talented artist who worked in various styles from almost calligraphic figures and misty landscapes reminiscent of Chinese watercolor
paintings to expressionistic works in oil (Guillermo 1994, 58). He was able to depict stock images of Philippine life, like nipa huts, peasants, and madonnas,
represented in a muted, disarming manner.

Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s works showed a conservative slant in her choice of subject matter consisting of women harvesting or selling fish in the market in their
traditional attire. Though conservative in subject matter, her style was modernist as seen in the distortion of her figures and concern for decorative elements.
Bold and expressionistic brushstrokes and strong tonal contrasts used in her early works were later replaced by a more lyrical and graceful quality produced by
the careful arrangement of figures, soft lines, and more consistent modeling (Guillermo 1994, 369).

The circle as it is transformed in various ways is the predominant figure in Nena Saguil’s works. This is discernible in her early genre and representational works
in the 1940s, which emphasized the rotundity of figures. In the late 1960s, circular holes and relief elements were her predominant design motifs painted on
irregularly shaped canvas, while her landscapes in the 1970s were filled with “circles that rise and float in a bubble and rose ether” (Guillermo 1994, 397).

Other Neo-Realists of the period explored different strains of cubism that veered further away from the figurative. Constancio Bernardo’s works focused on the
relationship between line, color, and shape, which were employed to produce optical illusion. He also delved into abstract expressionism, and his works in this
style revealed a frenzied spontaneity radically different from his more studied and analytical works.

Cenon Rivera shifted to abstraction in 1951 after working in the academic style for years. He started experimenting with analytical cubism as seen in his
Wooden Shacks, 1951, but acquired a distinctive style later when he blended semiabstract figuration using stained glass and mosaic techniques (Pilar 1994,
392).

Arturo Luz utilized line as the basic structural element in his works, imbuing these with rhythm and movement as in Paul Klee’s works. Luz utilized the rhythmic
elegance of line, the poetry of tonal gradation, and the emphasis on sparseness in his more calligraphic works. His works, such as Still Life with Bottle, 1953,
and City, 1960, had a sense of austerity evoked by the weightlessness of his lines and the restraint he practiced in the use of space.

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Arturo Luz, Still Life with Bottle, 1953, Ateneo Art Gallery Collection (Photo from
Ateneo Art Gallery)

Victor Oteyza also emphasized lines but his lines did not have any referential nor associative meaning (Torres 1992, 163). His Plastic Engineering No. 13, 1955,
depicted lines in different colors that crisscross each other. The spontaneous placement of lines and color may look random but the overall composition reveals
Oteyza’s attention to balance and modulation, with the planes receding and advancing depending on the intensity of the colors used and the variation in the
width of the lines.

Another abstract artist was Fernando Zobel whose florid and ebullient lines and shapes in works like Bodegon Antellano, 1952 and 1953, contrast with Luz’s
lean lines. Like many modernists, Zobel also moved on to more abstract forms by the mid-1950s. Influenced by abstract expressionism, he utilized a
hypodermic syringe instead of a brush to create random lines in his Saeta series.

Abstract expressionist Federico Aguilar Alcuaz combined gestural abstraction with surrealism. He is identified with the nonfigurative movement in Barcelona,
Spain. The nonfiguratives insisted on natural forms and recognizable motifs to counter the emotional and expressive lines of the Spanish formalists (Torres
1992, 196-97). The forms created by Alcuaz may have been discernable but they also had an aura of mystery about them, as though mined from another world.
Depicted with dynamic and expressive brushstrokes and color, these forms evoke a surreal quality that is both powerful and enigmatic.

Lee Aguinaldo’s works were influenced by the works of Jackson Pollock but he developed his own style called flick painting where he flicked paint from a
palette onto the canvas. In his Galumphing series, he incorporated pop images influenced by Robert Motherwell and linear painting (Chu 1994, 303). He is also
known for his linear paintings that combine the simplicity of lines with fluorescent colors, producing a pop art effect.

A young artist still in his teens in the 1950s, David Cortez Medalla explored art brut. Art brut was coined by Jean Dubuffet for art that should be spontaneous
and unprocessed, unlike conventions of “fine” art. Medalla’s works in the 1950s revealed this rawness. His My Sister at the Sewing Machine, 1956, is like a
child’s painting with its spontaneous manner of coloring, absence of perspective, and random imaginary interpretation of the human face and anatomy. His
works in this style did not gain much public attention at the time, but he would be recognized later in the 1960s for his kinetic sculptures.

The insistence on art for art’s sake may, at the outset, give the impression that the Neo-Realists were following a facet of modernism that assumed art’s
detachment from public expectation. On the contrary, however, Filipino artists working in the modernist idiom knew too well that their art could never achieve
the kind of self-referential autonomy referred to by American art theorist Clement Greenberg. The history of modern art in the Philippines is a testament to how
artists were beholden to the public and to the institutions that shaped them. While the intellectual elite and institutions favored this new mode of expression,
the public was still wary of accepting this stream of art. It is said that for the public, the acceptable modernists were Manansala, Tabuena, and Magsaysay-Ho
as they did not completely distort their figures and even referenced stock images of Philippine pastoral life (Torres 1992, 141). It would take another decade
before the modernists would gain public acceptance. Their eventual validation in the 1960s was the result of the alliance between the modernists and
influential institutions like the AAP and the PAG, which rallied behind them and supported their cause.

Alongside the search for a new way of expressing the tensions of the period was the continuing search for national identity. The independence of the
Philippines from the USA in the postwar period also stirred nationalist sentiments reflected in the different modes of artistic expression. Riding the crest of this
sentiment, the AAP required that 10 percent of the criteria for its competitions be devoted to the Filipino element of each entry. PAG artists deplored this
criterion and argued that art’s purpose was to engage in aesthetic issues and make people think. For them, “the quality of work design was considered more
important than painting carabaos, nipa huts and rice planting peasants” (Torres 1992, 136). They believed that “Filipinism not only distracted from producing a
good work of art but was narrow-minded, parochial and even irrelevant” (Torres 1992, 136). For them, modernism also meant internationalism and the more
immediate problem was how their works would fare in the international art scene. The West remained the source of artistic influence for the Neo-Realists and
the goal was to catch up with developments abroad.

Carlos “Botong” Francisco was an exception in that in his lifetime, he upheld content and subject matter over form and utilized images that represented local
identity. In fact, Botong not only embraced his nativism but “flaunted it despite the fact that it wasn’t fashionable anymore” (Torres 1992, 136). In fact, it was
perhaps due to this that he achieved cult status in his hometown of Angono and collectors would drive all the way from Manila to Angono just to buy his works
(Torres 1992, 137). His figures were not tame nor were they abject; rather, they evoked a dynamic verve and dignity that was unlike any other. His works were
expressionistic in approach and his themes were culled from Philippine history, customs, and folklore. Women were mythologized figures, such as Mariang
Makiling and Princess Urduja, or contemporary women doing daily chores. The use of vibrant colors, curvilinear lines, and the sense of horror vacui in his works
speak of the local temperament then. Botong created several murals of Philippine history, among which is Filipino Struggles through History for the Manila
City Hall. Botong’s influence has lived through the works of generations of Angono painters who have been influenced by his distinctive way of representing
the folk.

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Carlos V. Francisco, Maria Makiling, 1947, Paulino and Hetty Que Collection

Modernists equated national identity with content, specifically images of carabaos and nipa huts, thereby disregarding the power and emotive effect of form
that could be reworked to express the temperament of place and identity. But many of the artists working in the modernist style eventually developed their
own brand of abstraction and showed how foreign influences could be tempered by the artist’s sociohistorical experiences and cultural and artistic traditions.
The type of cubism that Filipino artists harnessed was not the analytical cubism of Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, which “fragmented the figure into sharp facets in
an austere monochromatic field but the cubism of the alter synthetic phase which showed broader planes and restored color harmonies and ornamental design
and texture” (Guillermo 1994, 57). Alice Guillermo argued that it was this synthetic phase that “better suited the temperament of Filipinos and their penchant for
color forms, ornamentation and flat composition covering the entire pictorial field” (1994, 57). The transparent cubism of Manansala, Tabuena, and Legaspi are
said to be evocative of the sheer and crystalline qualities of capiz (oyster shell) windows, piña (pineapple fiber), jusi, the Christmas parol (lantern), the Pahiyas
kiping (rice wafer), and colorful pastillas (milk candy) wrappers (Guillermo 1994, 57). The human figure is also not completely or severely distorted to evince a
sense of the familiar.

Meanwhile, the debate between the conservatives and the modernists were not confined to gallery and coffee-shop talks or academic quibbles. Edades and
Tolentino fought it out in several verbal tussles in This Week and the Sunday Times Magazine in Jul 1948. The public also joined the debate. A Dominican
priest labeled modernist works “products of a warped mind” (Torres 1992, 122). Journalists and poets, such as Aurelio S. Alvero, E. Aguilar Cruz, Armando
Manalo, Francisco Arcellana, Ricaredo Demetillo, Rodrigo Perez III, Fernando Zobel, Leonidas Benesa, and Emmanuel Torres, comprised the intellectual elite
and they rallied behind the modernists (Torres 1992, 122, 124). In an attempt to placate the conservatives, the AAP set up two divisions of entries to their annual
competition. This strategy eventually proved futile. In 1955, the AAP held its semiannual competition and exhibition at the Northern Motors showroom in
Manila. A few minutes after the ribbon cutting, conservatives took down their entries from the walls, walked out of the showroom, and displayed their works on
the sidewalk across the street. The conservatives did this to protest the perceived bias of the jury in awarding all the Rotary Club Golden Anniversary awards to
modernists Galo Ocampo, Manuel Rodriguez Sr, and Vicente Manansala (Torres 1992, 127). After this historic incident, the conservatives set up their own
galleries in the Mabini area catering mostly to tourists. Since it had become moot after the walkout, the AAP abandoned the double criteria track in 1959.

Galo Ocampo, Sanctuary, 1969 (Photo from The Art of the Philippines 1521-1957 by Winfield
Scott Smith III. Associated Publishers, 1958.)

For some observers, the walkout signaled the victory for the modernists who, by this time, had secured their place in the mainstream art world. But the
conservatives did not disappear into oblivion as many historical accounts of postwar art are wont to portray. The conservatives eventually created their own art
world that was as vibrant and lucrative as the art world of the modernists. Those who walked out of the AAP competition formed an organization called the
Academy of Filipino Artists and held their own annual exhibitions at the Luneta Park in front of the Manila Hotel (Tan 2013). When the members of this
organization drifted apart, some set up their own studios and art shops in the Mabini area. Other artists followed later, and together they formed a new group
called the Mabini Artists’ Association.

In her seminal work on Mabini art, art scholar Pearl Tan identifies three generations of Mabini artists. The first generation consisted of artists who hewed
closely to the style of Fernando Amorsolo and painted idyllic pastoral scenes. They started painting in the late 1940s and became established in the 1950s.
Artists belonging to this generation are Gabriel Custodio, Simon Saulog, Miguel Galvez, Cesar Buenaventura, Cesar Amorsolo, Serafin Serna, Ben Alano, and
Fermin V. Sanchez. The works of these artists sold well especially among tourists. Mabini art became even more popular as continued urbanization in the 1950s

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and 1960s led to the demand for decorative items for newly constructed buildings. It should be noted that while the first-generation artists worked in the
conservative style, some experimented with modernist techniques. For instance, Miguel Galvez worked in various styles from naturalism to impressionism,
post-impressionism, and expressionism (Tan 2013).

The second-generation Mabini artists started actively painting in the 1960s and were 20-30 years younger than the first-generation artists. Unlike the all-male
composition of the first generation, women artists like Emy Lopez and Rexi Gonzales were part of this second generation (Tan 2013). The academy had
disbanded by this time but most of the members continued to work in shops along Mabini and nearby streets. Galleries and shops such as the Emy Lopez Art
Gallery, the Philippine Art Gallery of Zablan, the Contemporary Art Gallery of Paco Gorospe, the Manila Art Gallery of Asing Wong, Jon’s Photography, and Art
Gallery of J. Pulido were owned by artists who sold their works and acted as dealers themselves (Tan 2013). The second-generation artists did not confine
themselves to the conservative style of Amorsolo but began experimenting with modernist techniques of abstraction. Their subject matter also became more
eclectic. They added urban street scenes to the typical rural scenes and painted themes like the Last Supper, nudes, seascapes, still lifes, sports, domesticated
animals, and sensational scenes copied from the cover of bestselling pocketbooks (Tan 2013).

Street Scene by Enrico Zablan, second-generation Mabini artist, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Collection

The third generation consisted of artists working in the area of Mabini in the 1970s. They were mostly freelance artists, such as fine arts students or hard-up
artists striving to be recognized in the mainstream art world. Artists of this generation reverted back to the conservative style (Tan 2013).

The works of Mabini artists conform to the tastes and standards set by dealers and clients. Many artists had to churn out works in large numbers to satisfy
client demand. This is one of the reasons why mainstream artists look down on Mabini artists whose works, they believe, are formulaic and made primarily for
commerce. It can be argued that it is not fair to judge the works of Mabini artists using the norms set by mainstream art, and that Mabini art has its own
aesthetic criteria, which is “the appreciation of the sensuous qualities and skillful execution of painting rather than the intellectualization of art” (Tan 2013).
Mabini artists also had loyal patrons consisting of wealthy local scions and tourists. Don Andres Soriano and Don Joaquin Elizalde were Gabriel Custodio’s
patrons for many years and they commissioned him to travel all over the Philippines to paint Filipino scenes. Mabini artists also received sponsorship from
companies who brought their exhibitions to other countries. In 1955, the Travelling World Tour Exhibit sponsored by De La Rama Steamship Co. Inc brought the
works of the Academy of Filipino Artists to the USA, Latin America, Hong Kong, and Japan. Miguel Galvez and Lucino Alejandrino exhibited in 1959 at the
Philippine consulate in Hawaii (Tan 2013). Through these tours, artists like Custodio were also able to develop a clientele abroad. The history of postwar art and
beyond therefore reveals the coexistence of differing art worlds where different aesthetic norms and standards were used to satisfy clients with diverse tastes
and predilections.

The early 1960s witnessed the opening of two new galleries that were to supplant the PAG—the Contemporary Art Gallery of Manuel Rodriguez Sr and the
stylish Luz Gallery of Arturo Luz in Makati. The Contemporary Art Gallery became the venue for original fine prints while the Luz Gallery replaced the PAG as
Manila’s premier gallery (Torres 1992, 132). At this time, PAG’s influence began to wane due to competition from these two galleries, dwindling finances, and
Arguilla’s failing health. The PAG finally closed down in 1968.

The 1960s also saw the rise to prominence of second-generation modernists such as Jose Joya, Ang Kiukok, Mauro Malang Santos, Antonio Austria, Angelito
Antonio, BenCab, and Juvenal Sanso.

Jose Joya was the leading abstract expressionist of this period, producing large action paintings. He applied paint spontaneously on the canvas in large, broad
strokes with a brush or spatula, or squeezed paint directly from a tube onto canvas. The colors he used were bold, his lines and brush strokes were broad yet
rhythmic and dynamic. Texture is conveyed by using rough impasto finish mixed with sand, as in his monumental work Granadean Arabesque, 1958. Though
spontaneous, Joya’s works always displayed a keen sense of balance between improvisation and studied elegance. From spontaneous, expressive brushstrokes
and colors, Joya’s later works revealed a more organized composition featuring rounded overlapping shapes. Joya represented the Philippines in the 1964
Venice Bienniale.

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Jose Joya, Granadean Arabesque, 1958, Ateneo Art Gallery Collection (Photo from Ateneo Art Gallery)

Ang Kiukok developed his distinctive style during the 1960s after having been influenced by the works of Manansala. His early works consisted of somber
landscapes and monochromatic still life. Even in his early works, Kiukok’s images evoked solitude and bleakness evident in subjects like skeletons, empty
cabinets, or doors and windows looking out at desolate landscapes (Coseteng 1992, 207). In time, his images began to take on a more visceral approach. His
colors became bolder and brighter and his figures more distorted. After his trip to the USA in 1965, the images he painted became even more expressive of
anguish and frustration, and were at times even tinged with macabre humor (Coseteng 1992, 209). During this period, he painted robots, skeletons inside a box,
and animals that look menacing. It was in the 1960s that Ang Kiukok created the convulsive images of his Crucifixion series, which portrayed pain, angst,
suffering, and violence. The distorted wrenching figure of Christ was later reduced to even more abstract forms. Ang Kiukok’s images that are at once cynical
and disturbing make up powerful statements of human struggle.

Among those who were influenced by Manansala’s Filipino vision of city life were Mauro Malang Santos, Antonio Austria, and Angelito Antonio. Malang Santos
was an illustrator and cartoonist who ventured into painting in the 1960s. His works in the late 1960s were a microcosm of Philippine life, which portrayed the
town plaza, the church, and groups of people engaged in different activities. Later, he expanded his subject to include urbanscapes, birds, flowers, and religious
icons (Coseteng 1992, 202). Malang’s images are geometricized and arranged in overlapping planes with a predominance of primary colors such as red, yellow,
and blue. His stylization is not analytical and rigorous, but often exudes a light, playful quality not unlike his cartoons.

Antonio Austria rendered various subject matter from urban to rural sceneries, images of the elite and ordinary people, to jeepneys, folk games, and fiestas. He
did not completely distort his figures but rendered them as short and rotund with “flat tubular limbs and stubby hands and feet” (Guillermo and Villar 1994, 315).
Horror vacui is also evident in his works as he covers spaces with different shapes and colors. The flatness of his composition, simplicity of execution, and the
use of cheerful colors lend a disarming naivete to his works.

Angelito Antonio depicted ordinary folks such as vendors, peddlers, and cockfighters. A more simplistic approach to cubism is apparent in his use of simple, fine
lines that subtly cut his figures’ cheekbones or delineate the creases on their clothes. Antonio also used black charcoal instead of color as structuring device
(Guillermo 1994, 309).

The works of these artists show that the idioms of the conservatives, after all, were not entirely abandoned, and that many of the modernists harked back to the
familiar and the pastoral.

Another young artist at the time was Benedicto Cabrera aka BenCab. BenCab’s first show was in 1960 at the Indigo Art Gallery in Ermita (Guillermo 1994, 324). A
series that distinguished BenCab’s body of work consisted of images culled from colonial period postcards, which he found as he was sifting through antique
and thrift shops in London. Called the Larawan series, these works demonstrate the artist’s deft mining of embedded meaning made engaging through creative
cropping and witty composition. Other works consisted of paintings of scavengers, derelicts, and the barong-barong (shanty). He also did numerous sketches
of an iconic character he named Sabel. These were drawn after a scavenger who used to roam the streets of Bambang where the artist lived. BenCab was
fascinated with the plastic sheets that Sabel wrapped around her body, which made beautiful abstract shapes (Reyes 1989, 156).

Juvenal Sanso, Tree of Life, Cultural Center of

the Philippines Collection

In the 1960s, Juvenal Sanso developed his own surrealistic style in depicting landscapes, rock forms, seascapes, bamboo fish traps, and lichens. His subject
matter is oftentimes recognizable, but his detailing of life forms that flourish in deserted places and the colors he uses to do this enable his work to take on a
dreamlike quality. In the meantime, Federico Alcuaz, who had been in Barcelona since 1954, came home to hold an exhibition at the Luz Gallery in 1964. Zobel,
on the other hand, shifted to a more serene and restrained type of abstraction. This decade saw his fascination with Chinese characters that he reduced to their
basic visual elements (Coseteng 1992, 197).

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Napoleon Abueva’s AAP-winning sculpture Kaganapan, 1953, may well represent the ambivalence wrought upon the Filipino artist negotiating with traditional
figuration and themes alongside exploratory processes using a variety of materials. Abueva would also become known for functional sculptures, such as
playground pieces found at Luneta Park and lobby benches at the University of the Philippines Palma Hall lobby.

With Abueva as leader, other sculptors rose to prominence during the decade, such as Abdulmari Imao, Solomon Saprid, J. Elizalde Navarro, Lamberto
Hechanova, Edgar Doctor, David Medalla, Arturo Luz, and Eduardo Castrillo.

Abdulmari Asia Imao, Sarimanok Crescent Series II,

2012 (Photo from Art+Magazine)

Imao’s stylized renderings, like Anito Assembly, and his long-running series invoking Islamic iconic references, like the crescent moon and sarimanok, make
up his seminal contribution to three-dimensional forms.

Saprid has long been associated with his heavily textured tikbalang (Philippine mythological figure that is half-human and half-horse) figures with their
stretched out metal presence either hovering or thrusting themselves toward viewers. These sculptors created assemblages that invoked a tactile order that
challenged not only the dominance of vision but created a different artistic experience that was contingent, interactive, and intellectual.

J. Elizalde Navarro was known for his masks made from hardwood, which merged human and animal forms. He also created sculptures using rods and pipes
and assemblages of found objects and metal parts, the best known of these works being Homage to Dodgie Laurel, 1969 (Guillermo 1994, 376).

Lamberto Hechanova used aluminum and transparent plexiglass with wood (Guillermo 1992, 326). Some of his works were made of cubes and blocks of
aluminum wrapped around colorful, twisted metal parts at their core. The design in the center breaks the monotony of the steely cold surface of the industrial
materials as well as the rigid regularity of these boxes and cubes.

Edgar Doctor did assemblages in relief and in the round using found objects such as metal parts, cogs, wheels, cylinders, and toys. In Economic Aggression,
1972, different metal parts were assembled around an armature and framed by vertical metal sheets stamped with holes that look like skyscrapers. The metal
parts take up the uppermost portion of the piece, their mass and weight encroaching on the lower portion of the visual field. He also created assemblages using
tattered toys to evoke a sense of nostalgia (Guillermo 1992, 327).

In the 1960s, David Medalla became known for his auto creative sculptures and kinetic art. His Bubble Machine and Smoke Machine were shown at the
exhibition Structures Vivantes: Mobiles/Images at the Redfern Gallery in London, 1963 (Nankervis 2014). His Bubble Machine created beautiful forms and his
Sand Machine traced forms in sand on a round dish. He also created Olfactory Sculpture using different types of perfume. Medalla’s works, which are
evocative of this personal experiences, have been described as prime examples of kineticism and a creative way of redefining physical forces and stable and
unstable units. Medalla left the country in 1960 and has since lived in London while visiting the Philippines intermittently.

Still another artist, Arturo Luz, made several distinctively modern sculptures during this period when the iconic architectural markers of martial law were built
up. Among these minimalist abstract pieces are those found at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), the Philippine International Convention Center,
along with later pieces installed within the Makati business district and at the Ateneo Art Gallery. Luz’s sculptures, much like his linear paintings, displayed a
clarity of vision, restraint, and playfulness. He transformed wood into graceful geometric shapes with beveled corners. He also bent pipes and steel to create
playful forms.

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Eduardo Castrillo, Pieta, 1966 (Photo by Mel Bacani III, courtesy of Castrillo Legacy Studio, Inc)

Another sculptor whose works were beginning to catch the attention of the public then was Eduardo Castrillo. Castrillo started producing sculptures for
memorial parks in the 1960s, his most remembered work in this vein being Pieta for the Loyola Memorial Park. These works were characteristically big, outdoor
sculptures that blended with their environment, their faceted surfaces and sheer size eliciting a sense of awe.

Aside from painting and sculpture, printmaking was making headway in the art scene in the 1960s. Even before this decade, Manuel Rodriguez Sr had already
introduced serigraphy or silkscreen in 1948 through his small gallery that served as outlet for the works of his students (Guillermo 1994, 394). He also
introduced woodblock printing and silkscreens, which he demonstrated in public in AAP’s Art in Action held at the Northern Motors showroom on UN Ave
(Harding 1974, 36). Rodriguez also introduced printmaking through greeting cards. Other artists like Cenon Rivera and Florencio Concepcion also did
serigraphy, creating beautiful designs for the PAG Christmas cards in the early 1960s.

In 1959 and 1960, Boyd Compton, a representative of the Rockefeller Foundation, visited Manila to invite Filipino artists to study printmaking in the USA.
Manuel Rodriguez Sr answered the call and underwent workshop training in New York through a Rockefeller grant, at about the same time Rodolfo Paras-Perez
was also training in printmaking in the USA. Rodriguez came home in 1962 and actively promoted printmaking in the Philippines. In the same year, Rodriguez
opened the Contemporary Arts Gallery at 1416 A. Mabini St. Rodriguez’s The Traveller, 1961, which was done at the Pratt Institute, and Nipa Hut Madonna,
1972, show his skill in transforming an engraving into something that looks like a painting. He explored genre themes such as pastoral scenes, festivals, and
ethnic ideographs (Benesa 1992, 352).

Manuel Rodriguez Sr, Nipa Hut Madonna, 1972, Ellen

Gedney Collection (Photo courtesy of Marcelino
Rodriguez)

In addition to being an artist, Rodriguez was revered as a teacher who tirelessly tried to convert as many people to the democratizing cause of printmaking. His
students cut across different sectors in society and consisted of college students, matrons, as well as those with hearing and speaking disabilities (Benesa 1992,
353). During this period, graphic arts was also introduced in the curriculum of the Philippine Women’s College where Rodriguez taught. His students then were
woodcut artist Lucio Martinez as well as Lamberto Hechanova and Restituto Embuscado (Benesa 1992, 355). In 1963, the American embassy brought an
exhibition of 40 works by leading American printmakers to Manila and Cebu and this presumably further stimulated printmaking among an even broader set of
artists (Benesa 1992, 352).

In the 1960s, Paras-Perez reaped awards in both local and international art competitions. He won first and second places at the semiannual print competition of
the AAP in 1963 and was elected member of the College of Professors of the Academia della Arti del Disegno in Florence, Italy (Benesa 1992, 354). His
xylograph One Way Corner won a gold medal at the International Graphic Art Exhibition in Italy in 1967. It is said that while Rodriguez introduced printmaking
through workshops, Paras-Perez wielded influence through his exhibitions (Benesa 1992, 354). In the late 1960s, Filipino printmakers also made their presence
felt in the Tokyo Print Biennial (Benesa 1992, 358). In 1968, with Rodriguez at the helm, Filipino printmakers got together and formed the Philippine Association
of Printmakers based in the Philippine Women’s University. Three of Rodriguez’s sons, Manuel Jr, Marcelino, and Ray, were to become respected names in the
field of printmaking. The mid-1960s saw the rise of younger print artists, like Virgilio Aviado who explored a wide variety of subject matter such as images of
santo (saints), sociopolitical themes, explorations of the psyche, the surreal, and even the occult.

Virgilio Aviado, Nazareno, 1965 (Photo from Virgilio Aviado: Selected Graphic
Works 1950-1990. Ateneo Art Gallery, 2004.)

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In 1966, the CCP was created through Executive Order 30. It was formally inaugurated on 8 Sep 1969 and was the most visible symbol of state patronage at the
time. It was a flagship project of then First Lady Imelda Marcos and was conceived as a government institution created to provide support for Filipino arts and
culture. Under Roberto Chabet and later Raymundo Albano, the CCP opened its exhibition programming to works influenced by the Western avant-garde and
conceptual tenets, pop art, happenings, environmental assemblages, new realism, performance, and sound works (Gatbonton 1992, 211). Chabet’s first exhibit
was at the Luz Gallery in 1961. His own works were avowedly conceptual, emphasizing the idea behind his art rather than technique and form. Eventually calling
himself a Flux artist, he did collages, drawings, sculptures, and installations using found objects. Also among his and Albano’s lasting contributions was the
opening up of nonwhite cube sites for art exhibitions and performance spaces, such as the short-lived Shop 6 in Cubao, and later in one of the stalls of the
Kamalig arcade in Manila. This shifting to alternative venues was also accompanied by the development of emergent art writing platforms.

The popular art scene was equally lively in the post-World War II era. Komiks became a popular form of entertainment especially for the masses due to its low
cost. After the war, Tony Velasquez revived his comic strips Kenkoy and Ponyang Halobaybay in Liwayway magazine. Halakhak komiks came out right after
the war to entertain Filipinos who needed a respite from the hardship. On 27 May 1947, Velasquez and Ramon Roces organized Ace Publications and published
Pilipino Komiks. The komiks featured the works of Velasquez, Manansala, Larry Alcala, Jose Zabala, Damian Velasquez, Jesse Santos, Tony Roullo, E.D. Ramos,
Fred Carrillo, A.Y. Manalad, and Hugo Yonzon. This was followed by Tagalog Klasiks in 1949, Hiwaga Komiks in 1950, Espesyal Komiks and Kenkoy Komiks
in 1952. It is believed that the comic books brought in by American GIs when they returned to fight the Japanese in 1945 influenced the format adopted by local
komiks and hastened its development (Guillermo and Cajipe-Endaya 1994, 108; Roxas and Arevalo 1985, 11).

Other komiks publishing outfits soon rose to join the lucrative industry, such as Extra Komiks Publications, G. Miranda and Sons Publishing Corporation,
Bulaklak Publications, Soller Press, and Gold Star Publishing House. In the 1960s, Atlas Publishing Co., run by the Roces clan, published many of the most
popular novels of the period such as Bittersweet, Maruja, Halik sa Hangin (Kiss in the Wind), and Alupihang Dagat (Sea Centipede). The love-drama-action
combination of these novels along with the inclusion of movie columns appealed to a wide readership (Roxas and Arevalo 1985, 31). Graphic Arts Service Inc
(GASI) was organized on 1 Aug 1962 and run by Damian Velasquez and his brother Tony. GASI published Kislap Komiks, Pioneer Komiks, Aliwan Komiks,
Pinoy Komiks, Pinoy Klasiks, and Holiday Komiks. Their publications featured works by Mars Ravelo, Francisco Coching, and Velasquez, among others. In
1963, Pablo S. Gomez, who was formerly an editor of Ace Publications, set up his own company called PSG Publishing House. In 1970, Ravelo organized his own
RAR Publishing House. RAR’s komiks were different because they were bigger in format than the other komiks being published at the time (Roxas and Arevalo
1985, 25).

Photo from the Dennis S. Villegas Collection,

komiksph, and The Life and Art of Francisco
Coching by Patrick Flores et al. Vibal
Foundation, 2009

 

After World War II, komiks stories began to veer away from humorous themes. Most of the stories now dealt with romance/fantasy or realistic themes. Realistic
themes dealt with real-life heroes and situations but were often laced with elements of romance or fantasy. It was rare for a realist series to be sustained
because of the happy ending syndrome characteristic of komiks in circulation during this period (Reyes 1984, 50). The ability of these stories to provide escape
from reality through illusionary and fantasy themes while anchoring these on aspects of the real world added to their appeal. The illustrations provided the
readers with a visualization of what they could only imagine from reading prose (Reyes 1984, 49). The illustrations in these komiks generally followed two
drawing traditions: the realistic and the romantic. The realistic style was usually utilized in stories dealing with contemporary issues and problems in society
(Guillermo 1994, 110). Ordinary people were depicted with ordinary qualities such as the characters in Ravelo’s Roberta and in Pablo Gomez and Nestor
Redondo’s Batang Bangkusay (Guillermo 1994, 110). The romantic style is exemplified by the works of Coching and is characterized by the depiction of
handsome heroes and beautiful heroines. The heroes were usually depicted as tall, mestizo or with Malay looks, and with curly hair and rippling muscles
(Guillermo 1994, 110). The women, on the other hand, had curvaceous bodies and long curly tresses. In the 1960s, pornographic komiks, called bomba komiks,
with graphic and sensual illustrations of the human anatomy proliferated and were published by fly-by-night publishers (Reyes 1984, 50).

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The post-World War II era was also one of Philippine journalism’s most active periods. The leading editorial cartoonists of the decade were Esmeraldo “EZ” Izon
of the Philippines Free Press, Liborio Gatbonton of the Manila Chronicle, Demetrio Diego of the Daily Mirror, and Bert Gallardo of the Philippines Herald.
Isaac Tolentino, who was then art director of the Philippines Herald would substitute for Gallardo in the latter’s absence. Among them, Izon had the longest
career that spanned the pre- and postwar periods. He started working as editorial cartoonist in the 1930s, doing the page-one editorial cartoon of the
Philippines Free Press with Jose Pereira. The works of these editorial cartoonists harnessed the techniques of distortion in varying degrees. Izon’s and
Gallardo’s works were tamer than Gatbonton’s cartoons, which utilized extreme exaggeration. In Izon’s works, the diminution and exaggeration of body size to
add comic relief was used sparingly. Gallardo’s cartoons were more literal and straightforward, and techniques of distortion were rarely used. In contrast,
Gatbonton portrayed “bad guys” with ugly and grossly exaggerated facial features. Diego was very adept in wordplay and produced witty cartoons that
combined caricatures with humorous texts. Corky Trinidad joined the Philippines Herald in 1961. Danilo Dalena’s cartoons appeared in the Philippines Free
Press in the late 1960s and in Asia-Philippines Leader in the early 1970s. Trinidad and Dalena were known for their cartoons providing pointed commentary as
these tackled social and political issues.

Editorial cartoon by Danilo Dalena in Asia

Philippines Leader, 1971 (Photo from the
artist)

The immediate postwar period up to the early 1970s was indeed a dynamic period that nurtured diverse artistic forms and styles and an active art market.
Modern art served the intellectual and the cultural elite while Mabini art catered to tourists and those who still preferred representational paintings. Both
streams of practice satisfied the growing population of fetishistic collectors. Komiks provided the masses with a convenient escape from the harsh realities of
life while editorial cartoons gave newspaper readers insights into the period’s most controversial headlines. However, the 1960s was also fraught with political
tension, and beneath the bustle of artistic activities were the rumblings of discontent and warnings of a looming political crisis. As the 1970s began, a new era
rife with political friction was ushered in.

 Written by Helen Yu-Rivera

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This article is from the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art Digital Edition.

Title: Philippine Visual Arts During the Third Republic (1946-1972)

Author/s: Helen Yu-Rivera
URL:
Publication Date: November 18, 2020
Access Date: February 15, 2022

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