PROPERTY FORMERLY FROM THE BENGUET CORPORATION COLLECTION In the Farm / Digging Camotes / Family signed and dated 1944 (lower right) oil on board 18" x 24" (46 cm x 61 cm) PROVENANCE Benguet Corporation Acquired from the above by the present owner LITERATURE Ocampo, Galo B. Anita Magsaysay: A Liberated Artist. Manila: United States Information Library and Division of Cultural Relations, Commonwealth Government of the Philippines, 1946. Published to accompany Anita's debut solo exhibition held at the USIS in early 1946. Mentioned on page 8 in Anita's list of paintings included in the show. Guillermo, Alice, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, and Anita Magsaysay-Ho. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: A Retrospective. Manila: A. Magsaysay, Inc., 1988. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Anita Magsaysay-Ho: A Retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Manila. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 31. Magsaysay-Ho, Anita and Alfredo R. Roces. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women. Pasig: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 139. EXHIBITED United States Information Library, Paintings of Anita Magsaysay, Plaza Cervantes, Manila, 23 February - 10 March 1946 The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Anita Magsaysay-Ho: A Retrospective, Manila, 15 December 1988 - 15 January 1989 A rare memento of Anita’s wartime experiences showcased in her first solo show A rare wartime painting by Anita Magsaysay-Ho, In the Farm captures both an idyllic environment removed from the war's ground zero and a hopeful longing for an eventual return to peacetime. The work depicts a family in a vast field, with the mother about to carry a basketful of kamoteng kahoy (cassava) gathered by her daughter, a most crucial source of sustenance during World War II, when food was scarce, and the greater populace was suffering from hunger. The father is seen packing up his pick and shovel, as they are about to go home and endure seemingly countless days and nights surviving and remaining hopeful in those uncertain times. The work, alternatively titled Digging Camotes, was among the highlights of Anita's debut solo exhibition, mounted at the United States Information Library at Plaza Cervantes, Binondo, in early 1946, immediately after the war. Painter Galo Ocampo notes in the exhibition catalog that Anita's show was "the first of a series that the Commonwealth Government intends to sponsor from time to time…[in] hopes to rediscover the cultural wealth of the country and to develop its artistic potentialities for the benefit of the living and as a tribute to those who fought and died to preserve our way of life." "The choice of Miss Magsaysay to begin a series of art exhibits is doubly significant. She is young. She is young. As a girl of promising talent, she was tenderly bred in the Genteel Tradition." The exhibition, which featured 47 paintings (39 oils and 8 watercolors), was the talk of the town, generating buzz and lively conversations amid the ruins of the once glorious capital. Approximately 2,000 individuals viewed the paintings, "of which fully one half were purchased—by all odds, one of the most successful art exhibitions ever put on in this country," as noted by Ismael Villanueva "I.V." Mallari, one of the early prolific writers and art critics of the country, in his article "The Philippines Through Undimmed Eyes," published in the periodical The Philippine-American. Digging Camotes (In the Farm) was one of the most expensive paintings in the exhibition, priced at 150 pesos, a substantial sum at the time. Ocampo lauded Anita's works as displaying "a remarkable degree of artistic abandon born of confidence and freedom. Her strokes are firm and purposeful. She has grasped the importance of design, of line, space, and color, and of richness in texture." Ocampo further noted that "although steeped in the traditions of the old school, Miss Magsaysay was able to shake off the fetters of academic art and to achieve individual freedom of expression." He concluded his praises for Anita by christening her as "an exceptionally gifted artist who will go on hurdling the obstacles that stand on the way." Montalban’s temporary utopia In the Farm is a post-impressionistic work painted by Anita in Montalban, Rizal, where her family escaped as the war reached its violent climax. Montalban bore witness to Anita and her family's great escape from the impending bloodshed and battle for the capital city's liberation. The Magsaysays hurriedly left their Pasay home on Villaruel Street, as many people started evacuating the city upon hearing of the news "that the Americans were coming back just as MacArthur had promised." Anita wrote in her memoirs: "My father's good friend, Mr. Cueto, invited us to use the second floor of his house in Montalban. Our family, along with Mama's youngest brother, Tio Ramon Corpus, and family, moved there. At this time, the Japanese Army was starting to suffer from a scarcity of food. They commandeered trucks carrying fruits and vegetables. We would hide our chickens in the bathroom whenever Japanese soldiers were in town." "We met many, many, many friends in Montalban," Anita continued. "Lourdes Reyes Montinola and her sister and relatives were there. Some of my friends wanted to learn how to draw, so I gave lessons in drawing, providing them with baskets and fruits to copy. Some of them actually drew well. During the war years, we wore wooden clogs (bakya), but mind you, our wooden shoes were special-carved and painted with rural scenes of nipa huts and coconut trees." Life in Montalban was somewhat subdued, despite the ubiquitous scenarios of people digging camotes as an alternative staple food in lieu of rice, which had seen critical levels of shortage during the war as production was disrupted and heavily militarized. While in Montalban, Anita found time to paint, amidst the lush fields, the scent of crisp country air, the rhythmic moos of the grazing livestock, the staccato cluckings of the poultry, and the towering natural corridors that are the Sierra Madre mountains, with Mount Irid, Rizal's highest peak, soaring majestically above them all. Painter-critic Alfredo Roces recalled this critical juncture in Anita's life and career in his monograph on the artist. "The war years did not prevent Anta from painting," Roces wrote. "Her father provided her with thin, smooth, white boards of wood about four inches square, on which she painted portraits. She gave art lessons to friends. When the family evacuated [from] Manila to Montalban, she managed to paint palette-knife landscapes." Anita's life in Montalban was a great contrast from their life in the city. "We hardly stepped out of the house [in Pasay] as there were many Japanese sentries stationed in the streets," Anita wrote. "Luckily, we had a brave cook who went to the market everyday for fresh food." Anita also recalled that her cousin, Benjamin Rodriguez, survived the infamous Bataan Death March. In December 1941, when news of the Japanese bombing of Clark and Nielson fields was already spreading like wildfire in the streets of Manila, Anita and her sister, Emma, found themselves scrambling to buy first aid kits at Botica Boie in Escolta. There, Anita witnessed people seemingly stripped of their senses and sanity, as stores were being looted and grocery stocks hoarded. On the other side of the coin, there is a palpable tension in the work resulting from Anita's use of a palette knife, which gives the painting a dynamic texture and strong contrasts between color, form, and space. Around the same time Anita painted In the Farm, she penned a poignant poem as a cathartic release from the injustice of war. "Is it wrong to dream? / To build my castles in the air, / Today when everything is dim / And fate seems so unfair?..." "...To glorify my country's grandeur, / Her mountains and hills / The valleys rich with harvest / Her rivers and her hills. / To portray her children's laughter, / The wisdom of the old at home, / And her brave youth that struggle, / Upon this earth we call our own!" Notice that in this painting, Anita's use of the palette knife induces tension and anxiety. Through the thick impastos that produce a highly textured composition, Anita speaks of her aches and longing for a liberated nation, where she could exalt the glories of the motherland and articulate and be uplifted by the stories of resilience and freedom. For Anita, there is no freeing the strains of one's soul if the motherland is not emancipated from the aggravations of a ruthless hegemony—a freedom that speaks for all. Furthermore, the mother is noticeably positioned in the center. Her dress strikingly evokes the Philippine flag; she is the personification of "Inang Bayan," the motherland. As the painting's protagonist, she anchors the other figures, who are bowed down in oppression, except the young boy, who looks and points towards the horizon, an allegory for the "brave youth that struggle": the bright promise of the future, the defenders and hope of the homeland. He clings to his mother’s skirt, an interesting device Anita underscores to make known her stand: that her motherland belongs only to her countrymen, which she symbolically touches on in her poem. In this work are vestiges of Paul Cezanne, whom Anita counted as an early influence, particularly during her studies at the School of Design co-founded by the modernist patriarch Victorio Edades, who also admired the PostImpressionist luminary. The highly textured space resulting from Anita's use of the palette knife evokes a Cezanne key principle: structure over impression, permanent over the fleeting. Anita's palette knife composition, with its dynamic palpability and tactility, captures a moment frozen in time, a lasting snapshot of her contradicting temperaments during the most tempestuous and apprehensive of times; a longing for peace in the midst of war, a transient countryside relief she yearned to last in perpetuity. Anita and her family would eventually return to their Pasay home when food in Montalban grew more expensive, a scenario they would also witness back in the city. She recalled that their cook “had to bring a bayong of money just to buy chicken and pork from the market. Money had become useless, its value going down every passing day.” When the Battle of Manila was ringing its death knell, Anita and her family carefully escaped with some of their valuable belongings through mined roads towards the house of Dr. Veloso, a family friend. That same night, Anita witnessed the sky ablaze with fire and smoke from the Japanese burning of houses and buildings. They would find out the next morning their house and property were fortunately spared from the horrors that happened in the dead of night. In the Farm at Anita's First Retrospective In the Farm would be showcased in Anita's first retrospective exhibition, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila from December 1988 to January 1989. Poetically titled Isang Pag-Alaala, it was Anita's first show in 10 years and, most notably, the Philippines' first large-scale, full retrospective exhibition, capturing in more than 100 works her four prolific decades as the country's foremost Filipina painter. During this time, Anita and her family had been living in Hong Kong, where she spent 17 years of her life. Anita's retrospective, which also marked her Philippine homecoming, was one of the year's—and the decade's— most important and anticipated shows, with all of the country's major newspapers covering it almost daily. The late Maurice Arcache, who legendarily captured the glitz, glam, and gossip of Manila's high society in his column "My Lips Are Sealed…Sometimes," dubbed Anita's show as the "Retrospective of the Decade," writing in his article that the exhibition caused probably one of Manila's most iconic bumper-to-bumpers, completely shutting off the stretch of Roxas Boulevard and nearby streets. "The cocktails on opening night was so crowded that many of Manila's toppity-top visibles and rare-visible personalities failed to see Anita's magnifique and formidable works of art, and had to dash back the following day to really scrutinize the paints," Arcache wrote. "It was the event of the season as some 500 guests from all over the country trooped to the museum. At one point, the boring traffic jam outside stretched for a quarter of a mile, and many anxious guests abandoned their cars just to get inside." Among the VVIPs of the opening cocktails were Manila's who's who: Sen. Leticia Shahani, Asia's King of Fashion Pitoy Moreno, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, collector and connoisseur Dr. Teyet Pascual, critic Eric Torres, Judy Araneta-Roxas, Nene Quimson, Maribel Ongpin, Gemma Cruz, Bambi Harper, Bessie Legarda, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, Baby Fores, Bea Zobel, and Bing Roxas. "One thing was proven that evening. Our living legend, artist par excellence, the one-of-a-kind Anita Magsaysay-Ho, wherever she may live, will always remain a Filipina whom we can all immensely be proud of, dahlings," Arcache wrote. In the invitation for the retrospective, Anita wrote a personal dedication to the Filipina, her perpetual source of inspiration. "I dedicate this exhibition to the women of the Philippines—the source of my inspiration—their movements and gestures, their expressions of happiness and frustrations, their diligence and shortcomings, their joy of living. I know well, for after all, I am one of them." In In the Farm, the woman is the painting's protagonist. Anita renders her with a kind of dignified grace only a woman could articulate well. Going back to her Zambales roots and its women folk, to whom she was always indebted to for giving her "the depth of impressions" which she "subconsciously drew upon with so much fondness and passion" whenever she painted, the retrospective, inasmuch a celebration of her artistic legacy, was an homage to the country women of her province, whether they are working in the fields, mending nets by the seashore, or just bonding through lighthearted conversations and gossips. Even in the context of the wartime painting In the Farm, Anita puts the Filipina front and center as a consummate exemplar of honor and resilience, of constant struggles and eventual triumphs, whatever one's life's circumstances or standing may be.
Five Senses signed and dated 1950 (upper left) oil on wood 13" x 10" (33 cm x 25 cm) PROVENANCE Private collection, USA LITERATURE "Judges' Choice." This Week, September 1950. Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Center. Kalaw-Ledesma, Purita and Amadis Ma. Guerrero. The Struggle for Philippine Art. Quezon City: Purita Kalaw-Ledesma and Vera-Reyes, Inc., 1974. Listed on page 181 as "2nd Prize, Five Senses, Anita Magsaysay- Ho" under the partial list of awards given by the Art Association of the Philippines in its exhibitions and competitions. Magsaysay-Ho, Anita and Alfredo R. Roces. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women. Pasig: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Title mentioned on page 38. EXHIBITED Manila Grand Opera House, Manila Grand Opera House Art Exhibition (Sponsored Jointly by the Art Association of the Philippines), Manila, 15 - 30 August 1950 AWARDED This painting was awarded the Second Prize at the Manila Grand Opera House Art Exhibition and Competition, held in August 1950 and cosponsored by the influential Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) Anita's first prize-winning masterpiece resurfaces Presented in this lot is an exceptional painting by Anita Magsaysay-Ho, recently resurfaced after being unseen by the public for over seven decades since its last showing in 1950. Titled Five Senses, the work was Anita's entry to the Manila Grand Opera House Art Exhibition, sponsored jointly by the then-nascent Art Association of the Philippines, held from 15 to 30 August 1950. Doubling as a competition, paintings in the exhibition were critiqued and evaluated by a panel of distinguished judges that included lawyer, diplomat, public servant, and art patron Jorge B. Vargas, newspaper maven who served as editor and editorial consultant for the influential The Manila Times, David Theodore Boguslav, Jacques Grosbois of the French global news agency Agence France-Presse, and Jack London of the French Ministry. Five Senses won the Second Prize at the said competition, only bested by Vicente Manansala's Barong-barong #1, a theme he pioneered in Philippine art. Most notably, Anita's second-prize nod for Five Senses was her first-ever major painting award. Hernando R. Ocampo, the High Priest of Philippine Modernism and its foremost stalwart, won Third Prize for his intriguing work, Dark Self. A report from the highly popular Sunday magazine This Week said of the winning entries: "Not so long ago, these paintings would not have made better than honorable mention (and one would have been cried down as lunatic) in any local art contest. A shift in patronage and viewpoint has since enabled modernists to win due recognition with works like these three, which won the first three prizes in the exhibition sponsored this last fortnight by the Opera House management." In fact, three of the honorable mentions in the competition went to the modernists: Anita's own Still Life, Cesar Legaspi's Symphony, and Manansala's Barong-barong #2. With the modernists' triumph in this exhibition-cumcompetition, dominating and bagging all the top three major prizes, they truly heralded a changing of the guard, the metamorphosis of the Filipino art landscape from the idyllic and romantic pastoral canvases of Amorsolo and his followers to that of the stylized, in which colors and forms are liberated and emotional and sensory gravitas are strengthened. The resurfacing of Anita's Five Senses is most important. The public had not seen it in over seventy years. It was also not featured or reproduced in the artist's major monographs; only a mention of its title serves as proof of its existence. Even Anita did not mention it in her all-important memoirs, and it was not included in her major retrospective at the Museum of Philippine Art in the late 1980s. Furthermore, seventy-six years ago, the modernist vanguards, the Neo-Realists, which included H.R. Ocampo, Manansala, and Legaspi, and who notably chose to express the harsh and unbridled reality of the times, had their first public exhibition at the Manila Hotel, sponsored by the Art Association of the Philippines, which shouldered the task of rebuilding and revitalizing Philippine art after the trauma of war. A little further back, seventy-eight years ago, the AAP held its first annual art exhibition and competition at the National Museum, temporarily located at Herran (now Pedro Gil) Street. In it rose triumphantly the "Thirteen Moderns," with Botong Francisco winning the coveted first prize for his masterpiece Kaingin. Demetrio Diego, Manansala, Legaspi, Diosdado Lorenzo, and H.R. Ocampo swept the second to sixth prizes, respectively. The great Fernando Amorsolo, one of the judges, even listed four moderns in his preferred winners of the six prizes, considering that he was the de facto leader of the conservative school. Newspapers and magazines of the time were quick to notice the modernists' landslide victory, with the Sunday Times Magazine writing that "the AAP show is the first substantial recognition of the Modernist group." Meanwhile, a heated rivalry between the conservatives and the modernists ensued in debates publicized in a series of articles in The Sunday Times Magazine and This Week, written by Guillermo Tolentino and Victorio Edades, who represented each camp. The intellectual hostilities between the two camps prompted the reading public to take a stand, with a majority still sympathetic to the conservatives. Nonetheless, a handful of writers and journalists, such as Magtanggul Asa, E. Aguilar Cruz, I.P. Soliongco, Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, and Francisco Arcellana, defended the modernist cause. Subsequent AAP competitions would see a pattern of modernist victory. The 1950 AAP competition, on which Anita won her first major prize, further solidified the Filipino modernist's prestige and status within the country's art sphere. It ushered in a new era for the Filipino artist, not only to catch up with the rest of the world in art trends but also to aptly express the harshness and resilience of the period. Sure enough, the modernists were not just staging an artistic revolution within a practically barren, stagnant cultural landscape; they were also reinforcing the idea of the artist as a professional. They were well educated and earned master's degrees at prestigious art schools abroad, seeking artistic advancement and improvement to defend their status as artists better and steadfastly champion their ideals. Overall, Five Senses is a work that encapsulates a society attuned and alert to the changing times: the changing of the guards, the heralding of a new age. As this masterpiece earned Anita her first major painting prize, Five Senses captures a juncture in modern art's gradual acceptance. Not only that, but the work also powerfully symbolizes that women are as capable as their male counterparts, that they, too, can lead the battle for modernism's triumph, becoming the more powerful visual articulation of a nation enduring the wounds and carrying the hopes of the post-war world. Five Senses, embodying Anita's position as the foremost Filipina painter A year before Anita painted Five Senses, in 1949, she held her landmark Manila Hotel exhibition, where she unveiled to the Philippine public, for the very first time, the egg tempera paintings she had painted while studying at Michigan's Cranbrook Academy of Art. The exhibition was well-attended by Manila's who's who (about 200 of them graced the opening cocktails), and the works were deemed a breath of fresh air for their novelty and graceful appearance. "For the first time, awkward, angular figures, mostly women, were painted in egg tempera or oil...The exhibition was a sell-out," Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, AAP founder, reminisced in her introduction to the exhibition catalog of her amiga's retrospective at the MOPA in late 1988. Anita's impact was so palpable that Purita recalled in her 1955 master's thesis that "artists were delightfully surprised to see the variety of media used [oil, egg tempera, watercolor, casein, wax, photogram, and collage], and the varied effects and wealth of possibilities that each medium could accomplish." She also recalled that after the exhibition, artists became more eager to explore mediums that suited their style and character, and local materials, such as achuete and añel, were explored as a means to search for a native identity in painting and to seek various ways to achieve luminosity in painting, the latter of which Anita exemplified. I.P. Soliongco, one of the most brilliant men of letters of the time and editorial writer/columnist of the Manila Chronicle, even christened Anita as "one of our favorites," indicating she was a darling of both the press and the critics. Anita's win for Five Senses was only the second time that a woman placed in the top 2 in a major art competition in the country during the post-war era (the first being Lyd Arguilla in the AAP 3rd Semi-Annual in 1950). Her dominance would reach new heights with her historic First Prize win at the 1952 AAP 5th Annual Exhibition and Competition for her now iconic The Cooks. Five Senses, as an encapsulation of all things folk and Filipino Five Senses depicts three women, each associated with one of the five basic senses. The lady on the right smells a sampaguita, with an ear riveted to the gossip being whispered by the lady on the left, who is seen grasping freshly picked sampaguitas. The woman at the back snacks on what seems to be a pili nut. The three women's flashbulb eyes represent the sense of sight, keenly attuned to the tea being spilled. Through angular distortion and manipulation, the piece conjures a comical, lighthearted composition that seems to alleviate the trauma of the recent war. The subject of the painting is very Filipino, as it touches on the popular pastime of chismisan, or gossiping, the easiest way to stay up to date on the latest happenings in the barangay or community. As Anita's stylized paintings of women are culled from the memories of her blissful childhood summers in the idyllic environs of Zambales, the hometown of her parents, Don Ambrosio and Dona Amalia, folks chitchatting after a long day's toil or even in the midst of their toiling to ease the burden of labor inspired Anita to paint a mischievous tableau. Anita may also have eagerly wanted a tête-à-tête with a friend as a quick breather from her responsibilities as a housewife to a growing family with shipping magnate Robert Ho ("painting between babies," she once joked). Maybe Anita had Purita in mind, since she was one of her best friends since their teenage years and shared "a deep appreciation for the arts." "She has advised me many times regarding some of my problems," Anita warmly shared in her memoirs. In gossiping, all five senses are functioning: ears for hearing the inside scoop, eyes for intensified, and oftentimes over-thetop reactions, tongues and noses for nibbling and savoring snacks, and the sense of touch reserved for outrageous, campy reenactments of and feedback to the "intelligence report." In contemporary pop culture, gossipers are known colloquially as "marites," the name humorously attached to a nosy neighbor and said to be a contraction of the question, "Mare, ano'ng latest? (Sister, what's the latest?)." Anita herself also said in her interview with Cid Reyes that it is the peculiarity of the Filipina, especially when laughing and conversing, that she was most drawn to. “I like the Filipina because she makes gestures, she’s very articulate,” she shared. Five Senses can be viewed as a sister piece to Anita's own Laughter, an acrylic on wood painting also created in 1950, and now forms part of the core collection of Purita Kalaw- Ledesma, bequeathed to the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation archives, library, and art collection. The women's eyes are humorously reminiscent of Anita's, as evidenced by an egg tempera self-portrait she painted in 1950. Painter-critic Alfredo Roces wrote in his monograph on Anita that this is a peculiarity of Anita's early works, writing that the females are "wide-eyed, the dilated pupil a spot of black on a sea of white, heightening drama and tension." Anita's roots in classical training From Zoltan Sepeshy—Anita's Cranbrook teacher who was educated in Budapest's Royal Academy of Art and then in Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts, and the author of the instructional volume Tempera Painting (1946) that Anita likely exhausted as a reference—she learned and mastered the unforgiving medium of egg tempera and "the need for imagination and free interpretation of lines and shapes to create interest and counterpoint in place of faithful rendering of anatomy," as articulated by Roces. Even though the style is modern, the overall composition is still rooted in classical training. In 1946, Anita studied at the Art Students League of New York, America's oldest independent art school, which also honed the talents of Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Georgia O'Keeffe, Roy Lichtenstein, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and Robert Rauschenberg. Anita was mentored by Kenneth Hayes Miller, the influential American painter and a stickler for the rules, who taught her "the compositional device of painting women in pairs," which Roces further described:"The interaction between two or more figures remains a Magsaysay-Ho forte." Notice that in this work, the two women in the foreground are depicted in direct engagement with one another. In contrast, the woman in the background, who appears more like a curious cat, serves as a unifying device, balancing and harmonizing the composition and completing a fundamental technique called the "triangle composition," widely popular among Renaissance painters. The woman in the background also serves as a unifying element in the painting, making the three figures look as tight-knit as possible to convey a sense of social cohesion and intimate companionship. The two women at the center are the motifs/foundation to which the viewer anchors their eyes towards the other elements in the painting. The eyes of the woman on the right, who seemingly possesses a piercing gaze towards the viewers, engage them directly in their gossip, as if an enticing invitation, making this painting as palpable and sensory as its title conveys. What makes this painting even more alluring is its luminosity. The veil of the woman in the background, which serves as the painting's "perfecting" device, also functions as a lighting device, juxtaposed with the relatively darker background and the brown tones of their skin, interweaving dark and light areas. Anita's own delicate sense of touch manifests in thinly applied paint using sable brushes, the same ones she used in her egg temperas. A luminous effect is achieved through glazing, mainly using browns (on the women's skin), greens, and pinks, unifying contrasting tones and exhibiting "glowing" layers, which Anita called "veils," as taught to her by Miller and inspired by Rembrandt. This technique allows light to bounce within the work and reflect from within. The warm, earthy tones contrasted with the lush, cool tones and coupled with the luminous effect evoke Anita's glowing memories of her happy childhood vacations in Zambales, where she witnessed and developed empathy for the womenfolk: their inherent pride and dignity both in their everyday lives and in their communal endeavors that sustain and nurture society, partaking in their joys, stories of resilience, and even interludes of comic relief. “She can stand on her own,” Anita said.
Lavanderas hand-signed and dated 1997 (lower right) serigraph 77/100 18” x 13 3/4” (46 cm x 35 cm) Accompanied by a certificate issued by Artprints Philippines Inc. confirming the authenticity of this lot
Fish Vendor hand-signed and dated 1997 (lower right) serigraph 13/ 80 15” x 14” (38 cm x 36 cm) Accompanied by a certificate issued by Artprints Philippines Inc. confirming the authenticity of this lot
a.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1980 (lower right) print 13/50 12” x 16 1/4” (30 cm x 41 cm) b.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1980 (lower right) print 13/50 12 1/4” x 16 1/4” (31 cm x 41 cm)
a.) Untitled lithograph 9” x 12” (23 cm x 30 cm) b.) Untitled lithograph 9” x 12” (23 cm x 30 cm) c.) Untitled lithograph 12” x 18” (30 cm x 46 cm) d.) Untitled lithograph 12” x 18” (30 cm x 46 cm) e.) Untitled lithograph 20” x 15” (51 cm x 38 cm)
Barrio Scene signed and dated 1948 (lower left) oil on canvas 16" x 24" (41 cm x 61 cm) PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist by Paul H. Wood, President of the International Harvest Company, sometime in the late 1940s to 1950s Asia. During World War II, Wood served in the US Army for four years as a major and lieutenant colonel in an Armored Division (Interestingly, the IH was also responsible for manufacturing several pieces of machinery for the US army during the war, most notably Mark 13 torpedoes that were primarily responsible for the sinking of the Yamamoto, Japan's most powerful battleship.). As lieutenant colonel, Wood commanded the “Harvester’s Battalion,” composed of enlisted men who were employed by or affiliated with the IH. After the war, Wood settled in the Philippines and was responsible for reorganizing the IH's pre-war company structure and organization. Wood became president of the highly influential American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines in 1950, while simultaneously serving as Vice President of the IH Philippines. After his term, Wood assumed post as one of the members of the Chamber's Board. He would also become a councilor of the Chamber's Foreign and Domestic Trade Controls Committee, attending hearings held by the Philippine Congress on matters and bills related to USPhilippine trade relations and trade controls. One of the most notable hearings that Wood attended was the one centering on the Retail Trade Nationalization Bill, which aimed to protect Filipino retailers. The bill would be signed into law by President Ramon Magsaysay on June 19, 1954. With his vested interests in Philippine business and enterprise, Wood would rub elbows and befriend powerful figures in the Philippine government, most notably Magsaysay, who became president from 1953 to 1957, during Wood's tenure as a board member of the Chamber and councilor in one of its committees. At this time, Wood had already become President and General Manager of the IH Philippines, and it was also possibly around this period that Wood met Anita, who was, of course, President Magsaysay’s cousin. Likely drawn to and enamored with the piece's quaint, rustic charm, Wood purchased the painting directly from Anita. Wood very much cherished this painting, even bringing it with him when he left the Philippines sometime in 1963 to settle permanently in Florida.
a.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1990 (lower right) print 12/300 13” x 17” (33 cm x 43 cm) b.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1990 (lower right) print 12/300 13” x 17” (33 cm x 43 cm) c.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1990 (lower right) print 12/300 13” x 17” (33 cm x 43 cm) d.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1990 (lower right) print 12/300 13” x 17” (33 cm x 43 cm)
Still Life signed and dated 1951 (lower right) oil on wood 7" x 10 1/2" (18 cm x 27 cm) PROVENANCE Private collection, Manila Much in the tradition of her fellow Thirteen Moderns, Anita Magsaysay-Ho also ventured into depicting still-life. She is the only woman included in that famed circle, and she brings about a quiet femininity to her works. Leading a traditional family life, Anita managed to juggle both the demands of being a mother, a wife, and an artist, creating pieces that put into the center stage the women who could have been neglected in the canvases of her male contemporaries. Even in her still-life works, Anita’s propensity for the quiet, feminine life is evident. This 1951 Still Life was created four years after her marriage to Robert Ho, whom she met in New York City. Almost half a decade into family life, Anita’s still life echoes that peaceful contentment she has known throughout her life. Portraying a vase brimming with flowers placed atop a dark wood table. It is still characteristic of that 1950s Anita’s dark palette, almost muted in its immediate and uncomplicated response to nature, highlighting one of the artist’s most famous quotes: “I know very well the strength, hard work, and quiet dignity of Philippine women, for I am one of them.” (Jessica Magno)
PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED LADY a.) Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Tres Marias edition: 1262/3000 ceramic 12” x 12” (30 cm x 30 cm) b.) Romulo Galicano (b. 1945) Morning Sunlight edition: 349/2000 ceramic 12” x 12” (30 cm x 30 cm)
PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED LADY a.) Untitled hand-signed (lower right) serigraph 1/100 19” x 15” (48 cm x 38 cm) b.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1998 (lower right) serigraph 16/45 21 1/4” x 15” (54 cm x 38 cm)
Catching Chicken hand-signed (lower right) dated 1998 serigraph 5/100 15 1/4” x 19 1/2” (39 cm x 50 cm) Accompanied by a certificate issued by Artprints Philippines Inc. confirming the authenticity of this lot
PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED LADY Pounding Rice 1947 egg tempera on board 23" x 17 1/4" (58 cm x 44 cm) PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist, ca. 1949 - 1950 LITERATURE Guillermo, Alice G. and Purita Kalaw-Ledesma. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: Isang Pag-Alaala (A Retrospective). Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. Manila: A. Magsaysay, Inc., 1988. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 38. Magsaysay-Ho, Anita. An Artist's Memoirs. Singapore: Anita Magsaysay- Ho and Tien Wah Press, 2000. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 101. Paras-Perez, Rod. Edades and the 13 Moderns. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1995. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines with the assistance of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1995. Black-and-white illustration and painting description on page 76. Roces, Alfredo. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women (With Annotations on Paintings by Anita Magsaysay-Ho). Pasig City: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 224. EXHIBITED The Manila Hotel, Anita Magsaysay-Ho: Solo Exhibition, Manila, 26 November - December 1949 The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Anita Magsaysay-Ho: Isang Pag- Alaala (A Retrospective), Manila, 15 December 1988 - 15 January 1989 Cultural Center of the Philippines, Edades and the 13 Moderns, Manila, 1995 The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Material Inspirations: Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Nena Saguil. Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, 9 November - 9 December 2024 “This was the second egg tempera painting which I made in Cranbrook, Michigan. My teacher, Zoltan Sepeshy, commented that although my first egg tempera was well done, it lacked impact. He asked me to put more gesture in my work. “I experienced pounding rice as a child of 10 or 11 in Zambales. I remember the jerking movements of the women especially at the waist, stomach, and foot as they lifted the pestle up and down to pound the rice. When I asked the women if I could try it, they were amused, but they let me anyway.”
a.) Untitled hand-signed and dated 1990 (lower right) print 11” x 13 3/4” (28 cm x 35 cm) b.) Untitled hand-signed (lower right) print 11” x 13 3/4” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Santol Vendor signed (lower left) ca. 1942 oil on board 15" x 17" (38 cm x 43 cm) PROVENANCE A wedding gift from Anita Magsaysay-Ho to her friend Norma Pantangco Jacinto upon her marriage to Juan “Jonby” de Leon Carlos in 1942. Anita Magsaysay-Ho lived a gilded — and yet, exotic — life. Her first-ever teacher was Irineo L. Miranda (1896-1964), giving her private art lessons at the age of 13; but she was also tutored by a series of foreign experts. One of them was Captain Michael, who she would describe as a visiting Cossack in her book, “An Artist’s Memoirs.” Then there was Herbert Hyman, a German emigré who had arrived from Batavia; finally, just before the war, a Japanese artist who taught at the Philippine Women’s University and was unmasked as a spy for the Japanese Imperial Army when the war broke out. It was Miranda, however, who would convince her parents to allow her to go to the UP College of Fine Arts where she would be mentored by Fernando Amorsolo. Later, she would come into the orbit of Victorio Edades at the School of Design, a new school ‘founded with eminent architects Angel Nakpil and Enrique Ruiz among others’ in Ermita. The ‘Santol Vendor’ reveals the beginnings of Anita’s distinct style, certainly, her very own unique point of view. The sinuous curves and massive sense of proportion of the woman in a saya show Edades’ influence, although the subject matter is pure Amorsolo. She sits by the roadside in the shade of a sheltering tree. It has, however, the earthbound color palette of Edades, and not the lightglazed, sun-filled hues of Amorsolo. The woman appears self-assured, a character with a story to tell, not a field hand or farmer’s daughter. Affter all, it is the second year of World War II, when women were beginning to come into their own, learning to cope and become independent. Oil paints and canvases would also have begun to disappear, probably explaining the sameness of the shades. The mood is thus quiet and not exuberant. This work was painted on the way to Tagaytay, according to the collector’s family lore. Anita had gone on an outing with a young couple who (unbeknownst to them) were soon to be wed. It was Anita who had introduced the two — fellow members of the same gilded society, Norma Jacinto and Juan “Jonby” de Leon Carlos. Norma was related to the cinema-theater moguls, the Rufinos. Her father was a prominent doctor. Carlos was equally wellbred, destined to become an important businessman. Magsaysay-Ho would present this painting as a wedding gift to the happy couple in 1942, satisfying proof of her handiwork as Cupid — and as a budding artist — on one summer day. (Lisa Guerrero Nakpil)
PROPERTY FROM THE HAYDEN AND VICKI BELO-KHO COLLECTION Women Gleaning signed and dated 2000 (lower right) oil on canvas 24" x 24" (61 cm x 61 cm) PROVENANCE Acquired directly from Mr. Randy Young Onwards to the new century and millennium, Anita Magsaysay-Ho found herself at the crossroads of prolific painting and building her legacy to Philippine art and culture. By the time the 2000s dawned, Anita transformed her canvases by incorporating what the eminent critic-painter Alfredo Roces described as "bright pastel colors," noting in a review of Anita's 2001 show at The Crucible Gallery that they "have now taken over her palette." Gleaning Women, painted at the turn of the millennium, features three ladies in a rice field collecting leftover grains after the harvest. Anita's composition has noticeably softened; her figures, particularly their faces, are rendered with a more delicate gracefulness. During this time, Anita had returned to Manila after years of constant travel from one country to another and having been a Canadian citizen for the past three decades. In the epilogue of her memoirs, simply yet evocatively titled An Artist's Memoirs, published in the same year as this painting, Anita wrote, "I have recently been spending more time in Manila to paint." "Although Canada is my country now, I often yearn for those little islands in the Pacific where my roots are, where my brother and sister and their families live, where I can reminisce about life with relatives and friends," Anita wrote. In this sense, Gleaning Women represents a full-circle moment for Anita. It can be recalled that Anita had always looked forward to her summer vacations in her father's hometown of Zambales when she was still a little girl. She wrote in her memoirs: "Why do we always have to holiday in Zambales? Now in hindsight, I thank my parents for bringing us to Zambales. These scenes of my childhood are so vivid in my mind; women pounding rice, winding our way back to town in the dusk after the picnic, the oil lamp lit windows of the nipa houses sparkling like fireflies in the dark. Had I never holidayed in Zambales, I do not think I would have the depth of impressions, which I subconsciously draw upon with so much fondness and passion when I paint." For Anita, her return to her motherland meant a renaissance of all sorts. Anita's employment of a brighter palette in Women Gleaning evokes a profound joy in her earnest reconnection with her roots. The warmth of Anita's composition captures that tender solace in the comforts of one's beloved land—and the everyday Filipina whom she exalted in her art. "I did not paint the people in the countries I lived in," Anita also wrote in the epilogue of her memoirs. "In looking back, this must have been a manifestation of my love for my mother country. For whenever I looked at an empty canvas, I saw only my Filipino women." Anita once said in the brochures and invitations of her 1988-89 retrospective at the Met Manila: "I dedicate this exhibition to the women of the Philippines—the source of my inspiration—their movements and gestures, their expressions of happiness and frustrations, their diligence and shortcomings, their joy of living. I know well, for after all, I am one of them." Perhaps, this is Anita's greatest legacy: finding relief in capturing the inherent joy and beauty of the Filipina to whom she had always been indebted for fostering her virtuoso, in hopes of empowering them much as they had strengthened her even if she was oceans away from her cradle.
PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED LADY Water Carriers / Taga-igib signed and dated 1947 (lower left) egg tempera on board 24" x 17" (61 cm x 43 cm) PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the Artist, ca. 1949 - 1950 LITERATURE "Versatile Artist: Painter of modern school turns back to the classic." The Sunday Times Magazine, 4 December 1949. Black-and-white illustration and painting description on page 30. Paras-Perez, Rod. Edades and the 13 Moderns. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines with the assistance of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1995. Black-and-white illustration and painting description on page 78. Guillermo, Alice G. and Purita Kalaw-Ledesma. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: Isang Pag-Alaala (A Retrospective). Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. Manila: A. Magsaysay, Inc., 1988. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 39. Magsaysay-Ho, Anita. An Artist's Memoirs. Singapore: Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Tien Wah Press, 2000. Mentioned as by Anita as "Water Carriers" in the chapter "At Cranbrook" on page 100. Roces, Alfredo. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women (With Annotations on Paintings by Anita Magsaysay-Ho). Pasig City: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 142. EXHIBITED Manila Hotel, Anita Magsaysay-Ho: Solo Exhibition, Manila, 26 November - December 1949 The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Anita Magsaysay-Ho: Isang Pag-Alaala (A Retrospective), Manila, 15 December 1988 - 15 January 1989 Cultural Center of the Philippines, Edades and the 13 Moderns, Manila, 1995 Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Material Inspirations: Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Nena Saguil. Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, 9 November - 9 December 2024 The Cranbrook Anita Magsaysay-Ho The 'Water Carriers' At the Dawn of the Age of Egg Tempera by LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL The egg tempera works of Anita Magsaysay-Ho are the stuff of legend, elusive and rare, but also luminous and unforgettably beautiful. The magical egg tempera works were first born at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, described by the New York Times on the occasion of this avant-garde college’s 90th year, as “the utopian art school.” Modeled after the Bauhaus and created at approximately the same time as the equally famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Cranbrook however is the sole survivor of “the other early-20th-century experiments in modernism”, said the Times. As soon as World War II was over, Anita Magsaysay traveled to the United States to complete her education in the arts. The first stop was the Art Students League of New York; the second was Cranbrook which Anita described as the second “must” school to attend in her memoirs. Out of some 500 applicants, she was among the 100 that was invited to attend. Eliel Saarinen (1873- 1950) was the first director of the school. Cranbrook would offer courses that included architecture, ceramics, design, fiber, metals, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture. (Charles and Ray Eames would meet each other at Cranbrook. Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia and National Artist Jose Joya would be among Cranbrook’s graduates. Anita’s own teacher, both instructor and head of the painting department, was Zoltan Sepeshy (1898-1974.) Educated at the Royal Academy of Art in Budapest and the Fine Arts Academy in Vienna, Zoltan Sepeshy came to the United States in 1921 and to Cranbrook in 1931. He would eventually become the president of Cranbrook in 1946, at the time that Anita was enrolled. Cranbrook was a magical haven for artists. Its campus was designed by Saarinen and featured a reflecting pool surrounded by eight bronze statues. “There was an atrium, a Greek theater in the gardens, in front of which was a long pool,” reminisced Anita. Her room was “all white” and very modern, but it was the private studios for each student which were outstanding. “I would paint the whole day until 11:00 pm while listening to classical music playing in the gardens. The only breaks were for lunch and dinner.” It was in this atmosphere that she learned to paint using the Renaissance medium perfected by Raphael and taught to her by Sepeshy. It was a painstaking and time- consuming process that would yield astonishing results. Anita would reveal in her autobiography that ‘Water Carriers’, the work at hand, would be the third-ever egg tempera painting that she would create. A photograph exists, to be found in the biography, “Anita Magsaysay-Ho : Isang Pag-Alaala, A Retrospective” which shows the ‘Water Carriers’ at the point of its inception and the various stages it took to create it. Labeled “Artist’s Studio, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan” it shows Anita wearing an artist’s smock over a checked shirt and twill trousers. To her left is a small boceto (study) of ‘Water Carriers’ and more instructively, to her right, the enlarged image on home-made carbon paper that she used to trace the figures onto the canvas, seen at the farthest end of the table. There are surviving notes describing the meticulous process to create the underpainting using this method. Afterwards, Anita would mix “5 values” for each color, using egg water and stirring the mix with black or blue, depending on the effect she wanted to produce. She would also prescribe the brushes needed — from fine sable to those for house paint —also rags and sponges, razor blades and sand paper. The cross-hatchings and striations add delicate textures and depth. It was a mysterious alchemy but instead of changing ordinary metal to gold, Anita would change egg yolks into magical works of art. Her mentor Sephesy had guided her to add more movement to her work, and the strong curves of the water carriers’ arms as they balance the clay jars on their heads create the requisite, brawny energy to do just that. A shirtless man prepares cans with a stick to carry the tins on his shoulder. A woman draws water from a well and in the distance, steeply-sloped thatch huts fill the distance past trees and a stick fence. The tableau is united by a simple palette of earth colors. Anita would confide in her memoirs that the Cranbrook experience would not only introduce the making of egg tempera paintings but was also “how she started painting women.” Both would define Anita’s career in art. Anita would become engaged to Robert Ho and married in a whirlwind romance in San Francisco after her first year in Cranbrook, cutting short this significant period in her career. It was only upon her return to Manila that she would take up the art of egg tempera again. The lustrous effects of egg tempera — combined with her lively, wholly original women figures — would make her the most famous woman artist in the country. And when she would win the grand prize at the prestigious Art Association of the Philippines’ competition with “The Cooks” in 1952, there was no mistaking the fact that she was also the best.
Untitled textile (tapestry made in Germany) 70” x 38” (178 cm x 97 cm) Provenance Acquired directly from the artist Aside from her unassailable trademark as the foremost painter of Filipino women, Anita Magsaysay-Ho has always been known to be an experimental modernist, the bold one who dared to try and experiment with various media beyond the traditional confines of oil painting: egg tempera, photograms, woodcuts, Japanese calligraphy, rakuyaki (Japanese ceramic painting), spilled ink, and even working on fabrics. The genesis of Anita’s experimental artistic nature can be traced back to 1940 when she studied under the great Victorio Edades in the School of Design organized by the latter, Juan Nakpil, Juan Arellano, Pablo Antonio, and other leading architects of the time. It was Edades who influenced Anita to take the progressive path of modernism, leaving her with the creative maxim, “Paint as you like, express yourself, and create.” Later that same year, Anita would be employed as a leather worker for a Russian lady. In her autobiography titled An Artist’s Memoirs (2000), Anita writes: “It was my first discovery of the pleasure one can derive from handicraft. My earnings were insignificant, but the experience was priceless.” Anita would also land a job illustrating beds for the ABC Bed Factory. Anita’s studies at New York’s Art Students’ League in 1946, where she immersed herself in oil painting, portraiture, one-minute sketching, and graphics (woodcut and lithography), and her succeeding enrollment at Michigan’s Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1947, where she learned egg tempera, further fueled her modernist instincts and fascination with everything unorthodox concerning art techniques and style. Anita also learned the art of Japanese calligraphy and rakuyaki when her family moved to Tokyo in the 1960s. Knowing Anita as an avant-garde modernist, it was around this period that she had also likely encountered the intricately elegant art of weaving fabric and thread into a canvas (recalling her gratifying experience of working on handicrafts in the early 1940s)—one that would later develop into her tapestries of the 1970s.
a.) Boy with a Hat signed and dated 1934 (lower left) oil on masonite 14 1/2” x 12” (37 cm x 30 cm) b.) Montalban Landscape signed and dated 1944 (lower left) oil on masonite 12” x 14 1/2” (30 cm x 37 cm) PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist literature Montalban Landscape: Magsaysay-Ho, Anita and Alfredo R. Roces. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women. Pasig: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 223. Boy with a Hat: Magsaysay-Ho, Anita and Alfredo R. Roces. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women. Pasig: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 286. These two subjects, painted back-to-back on a Masonite board, show two facets of Anita Magsaysay-Ho, then a maiden just known as Anita Magsaysay. “Boy with a Hat,” one of Anita’s earliest paintings Anita in her “Amorsolo Era” The first side of the composition, titled Boy with a Hat, is one of the very few paintings of males that Anita did in her entire life. “To paint men, I would have to have models; women, I draw from memory,” she once said in an interview with Archipelago Magazine in the ‘80s. Boy with a Hat is also one of Anita’s earliest paintings to enter the market. In December of last year, Léon Gallery had the privilege of auctioning a 1934 genre painting by Anita titled Lavanderas by the Stream, which was also the first time a work from Anita’s earliest years as a painter was seen by the public. When Anita painted Boy with a Hat, she was in the final year of her studies at the UP School of Fine Arts, the bastion of classic art headed by Fabian de la Rosa. Anita was particularly influenced by Fernando Amorsolo, then the most famous and prolific painter in the Philippines. He was instructor of the courses “Landscape” and “Drawing from Life” during Anita’s senior year. “During our time, I would think Fernando Amorsolo was the most influential. We all used to paint like him,” she would say in an October 1984 interview with art critic Cid Reyes. “We had no basis—an idea or criterion—of what good art really was. That’s why, even then, I was already advocating for some kind of a museum, even just a museum of prints. We had no museum at all. Since Fernando Amorsolo was our teacher, and his paintings were so beautiful, we all painted like him.” The painting shows Anita in her conservative beginnings. The subject is very Amorsolo: a peasant boy wearing his rattan sombrero, rendered in quick strokes with contrasting effects of light and dark areas. Anita may have painted this work in her class “Advanced Oil Painting 3,” helmed by De la Rosa and where students tackle “advanced problems in picture and portrait making with particular regard to composition and harmony of color.” In this course, students paint in situ based on “living and nude costumed models, half and full figures.” “Montalban Landscape,” Anita’s foray into Modernism A wartime gem The other side, titled Montalban Landscape, was painted at the height of the chaos and destruction that was the Second World War. The work is an impressionistic depiction of the mountains of Montalban in Rizal Province, now a go-to haven among mountaineers—especially among Metro Manila residents who want to briefly escape the hustle and bustle of the city—for its scenic hiking sites, notably the “Montalban Trilogy” consisting of Mounts Pamitinan, Binacayan, and Hapunang Banoi. Anita’s swift and candid strokes emphasize that the subject was painted on the spot, en plein air. Her modernist flair is exhibited: bold, vigorous strokes, strong colors, and the eschewing of depth in favor of flatness. The strong tension between color and form results in a dynamically textured work. These are the lasting effects of her studies in the School of Design, headed by none other than modernist strongman Victorio Edades. “Mr. Edades was a very inspiring teacher,” Anita said in her memoirs. “He taught history very well and enlightened us on Cezanne and the Impressionists. From him, I learned how to use colors in a modern way.” Two “Anitas” in One Anita brought her 1934 work Boy with a Hat and her painting materials when she and her family evacuated to Montalban at the height of the war. The land was rife with scarcity, and survival was the name of the game. Artists and their profession/vocation were not spared, as painting materials also became meager. As such, artists like Anita had to improvise to continue pursuing their hearts’ passions. For instance, Vicente Manansala mixed old, hardened paints with coconut oil. The more well-off Anita still relied on her oil paints, albeit recycling her boards and painting on them back-to-back. The result is two paintings in one that show Anita’s evolution: from her “Amorsolo Era” to her breaking away from the confines of tradition and entering her formidable, modernist phase, of which she would be placed in the highest ranks of the foremost Filipino painters of the post-war era. The Great Escape to Montalban Montalban bore witness to Anita and her family’s great escape from the impending bloodshed and battle for the capital city’s liberation. When the war was nearing its climax, Anita and her family moved to Montalban. They hurriedly left their Pasay home on Villaruel Street, as many people started evacuating the city upon hearing of the news “that the Americans were coming back just as MacArthur had promised.” Anita wrote in her memoirs: “My father’s good friend, Mr. Cueto, invited us to use the second floor of his house in Montalban. Our family, along with Mama’s youngest brother, Tio Ramon Corpus, and family, moved there. At this time, the Japanese Army was starting to suffer from a scarcity of food. They commandeered trucks carrying fruits and vegetables. We would hide our chickens in the bathroom whenever Japanese soldiers were in town.” Idyllic painting during the wartime era Life in Montalban was more relaxed, in contrast to their Pasay home, where she recalled of “hardly stepp[ing] out of [their] house as there were many Japanese sentries stationed in the streets. Luckily, we had a brave cook who went to the market every day for fresh food.” In Montalban, Anita was surrounded by the towering mountains and the lush landscapes that all contributed to a relatively calmer sense of spirit. It was in this environment that Anita painted several of her idyllic landscapes. Montalban Landscape powerfully echoes Anita’s sentiments during the war, recalling a poem she wrote in 1944 that resoundingly spoke of her yearnings for freedom, a liberated motherland where she can “glorify my country’s grandeur, her mountains and hills, the valleys rich with harvest, her rivers and her hills.” Anita also taught her friends the fundamentals of drawing. “We met many, many friends in Montalban,” Anita wrote. “Lourdes Reyes Montinola and her sister and relatives were there. Some of my friends wanted to learn how to draw so I gave lessons in drawing, providing them with baskets and fruits to copy. Some of them actually drew well. During the war years, we wore wooden clogs (bakya), but mind you, our wooden shoes were special-carved and painted with rural scenes of nipa huts and coconut trees.” Anita and her family would eventually return to their Pasay home when food in Montalban grew more expensive. Luckily, they and their material property would be spared from the ensuing horror that was to come, thanks to a family friend named Dr. Veloso, who offered the comforts and security of his abode. (Anita recalled that they had to walk carefully through a mined road towards the doctor’s house along Libertad Street.) (Adrian Maranan)
Property from rhe collection of a distinguished lady Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Mother and Child signed and dated 1961 terracotta Height: 15" (38 cm) Length: 6" (15 cm) Width: 6 1/2" (17 cm) Literature: Magsaysay-Ho, Anita and Alfredo R. Roces. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women. Pasig: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Reproduced on page 81 with sculpture description. Anita Magsaysay-Ho Magnificence in Terracotta: One of Three Pieces Known by Adrian Marnanan Anita Magsaysay-Ho closed the 1950s and welcomed the 1960s riding high on the heels of her well-deserved success. Anita entered the swinging 60s with her first prize nod at the 13th Annual Exhibition of the Art Association of the Philippines for her painting Two Women. It was a grand comeback to the top for Anita; she won her first-ever gold in the 1952 Annual for her now-iconic The Cooks. It was also a bolder affirmation of her being crowned towards the culmination of the dashing 50s as one of the “Six Most Outstanding Filipino Painters” by the highly popular and influential This Week Magazine. She was the only woman painter on the list, making her the country’s foremost Filipina artist. It was just natural for Anita to flex from time to time her unwavering spirit of experimentation. After all, she had been the famous conjurer of egg tempera among Filipino artists, which she said was the most superior, most demanding, and most favored medium. Anita would then dive into sculpting, which had also interestingly been explored by her fellow modernist Vicente Manansala beginning in the late 50s. The cover story of the 8 October 1961 issue of the widely circulated The Sunday Times Magazine featured one of Anita’s clay sculptures, a companion piece to the Mother and Child work on offer at this sale. Anita described that her sculptures were born of her earnest experimentation. The article succinctly wrote of Anita’s exploration of her new medium. “Like many other painters, she recently became fascinated with sculpture and began to dabble in the art as a hobby whenever she was not busy with her brush and oils.” The article also described Anita’s sculpting process. “Mrs. Ho fashion[s them] from clay, then had [them] baked by direct firing in a big native kiln.” There are only three known clay sculptures made by Anita in her lifetime. These are recorded in the authoritative monograph on Anita’s life and works titled Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women, authored by the eminent Alfredo Roces and with annotations on works by the artist herself. Anita particularly commented on the work at hand. She wrote, “This sculpture was fired in an open pit, that is why it has varied coloring. This will be cast in metal.” Anita had a particular fondness for the mother and child theme. She grew up to be inspired by her tender memories of her dear mother, Amalia Leonor Corpus. In her memoirs, Anita speaks highly of her mom, describing her as “the nicest and kindest of persons; indeed, a wonderful mother.” She also wrote: “She had a serenity that I wish I could have. She brought us up with simple anecdotes based on her life experiences. She was armed with a bag full of many Spanish and Tagalog sayings, which she would use to suit the occasion.” Anita added, “It was only when she died that we learned from the many people she had helped—students, friends, and relatives—that she gave money to those in need. She enjoyed watching me draw the illustrations of the children’s books that I was doing for Father Bishop Morrow, my boss. She patiently erased the pencil marks I had left on the pen drawings for the Catholic readers, My Jesus and I. [Anita illustrated the images of My Jesus and I, a set of readers for children studying in Catholic schools. It was Anita’s first job, illustrating for the book from her UP years up to her New York studies in the late ‘40s. The work was offered to her by her UP professor, Vicente Dizon, who was then leaving for the US and needed an immediate replacement for his illustration duties for the children’s book.] Anita’s face interestingly resembles the mother in the sculpture, lovingly embracing her child. By the time she made this work, she had been a busy and devoted mother to her and Robert’s five children: Helen, Linda, Doris, Robert Alexander, and Steven Theodore, all of whom she lovingly referred to as her “best critics.” “The children grew up watching their mother paint,” she wrote in her memoirs. “Robert Alexander and Doris would sit for hours watching me wield my brush.” Mother and Child is a snapshot not only of Anita’s earnest devotion to the cause of Filipino modern art but a testament to her high regard for a life-sustaining warmth nourished by maternal bond, a most noble Filipino value.
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) On the Beach signed and dated 1975 (lower right) mixed media on canvas 30” x 36” (75 cm x 90 cm) Provenance: Private collection, USA Literature: Guillermo, Alice, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, and Anita Magsaysay-Ho. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: A Retrospective. Manila: A. Magsaysay, Inc., 1988. Published on the occassion of the exhibition Anita Magsaysay-Ho: A Retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Manila. Full-color illustration on page 111 and painting description on page 110. Magsaysay-Ho, Anita and Alfredo R. Roces. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women. Pasig: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 263. Exhibited: The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Anita Magsaysay-Ho: A Retrospective, Manila, 15 December 1988 - 15 January 1989 Anita’s Ocean of Memories: From Summers in Coastal Zambales to Her Lively Hong Kong Years by Adrian Maranan Anita Magsaysay-Ho painting is essentially born from the hallowed vessels of the artist’s memory, in which the Filipina emerges strong and triumphant in their dignified labor and proud joy in their day-to-day endeavors. She was once recorded to have said in an interview with BusinessWorld on the occasion of her 1988 retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila: “I’m familiar with Filipino women. I know how they feel, I can paint them from memory.” In the summers of her youth, Anita basked in the fresh country air of Zambales, the hometown of her father, Ambrosio Magsaysay. Every March, Anita would spend the hot summer days in the company of her “Nana,” her grandmother Ramona Corpus, recalling in her memoirs, “Each summer vacation in March brought on the exciting trip to Zambales. My Nana and I would take the two-day journey by sea from Manila to the port of Subic. My mother, with my sister and brother, accompanied by a retinue of servants, would follow later. They usually headed for San Marcelino, my father’s hometown. My grandmother, Nana, and I always stayed at her home in San Antonio. Her large house stood at the corner of the plaza.” Beyond San Antonio, Anita also spent her summer vacations along the shores of Subic Bay, where her family used to have a nipa house “with a big verandah,” as she described. “Subic Bay was once full of fish,” she recounted. “I remember when the ringing sound of the village bells was a signal that there was a school of fish near the shore. My brother, Mike, would rush to the shore to help pull the nets in. For his efforts, he would be rewarded with one bonito fish.” She added: “We used to have a nipa house by the sea with a big verandah where we would go on vacations. My male cousins would sleep in the verandah. Other relatives would often stop by, spend the night and go swimming the following morning. It was always like a picnic. We were so happy until the war came, and we had to stop going to Zambales.” “Although my father used to manage logging and sawmill businesses owned by my granduncle, Teodoro Yangco, he eventually bought a mango farm by the sea in Zambales. My life, and therefore, my paintings, are so enriched by these vacations.” The coastal town of San Antonio and the pristine, lively waters of Subic Bay would be the perfect spots from where Anita would cull her memories of fisherfolks—the women mending the nets while their sons, brothers, and husbands prepare to toil in the high seas, eager to catch a bounty of fresh sea produce. A Painter Away from Her Motherland Fast forward to the 1960s, Anita would find herself at the crossroads of painting and becoming a devoted housewife to her own family. The entirety of the 1950s marked her successive years of triumph in painting in her homeland, even being crowned by the highly popular This Week Magazine in September 1958 as one of the country’s “6 Most Outstanding Filipino Painters” (She was the foremost Filipina painter of her time, a consistent prize awardee at the AAP’s annual and semi-annual competitions, and her once in a blue moon exhibitions were always the toast of Manila’s art circle.). But in the early 60s, Anita made that very difficult decision of leaving her motherland. She had been devoid of her Filipino citizenship due to a Philippine law that dictates that a wife automatically assumes the citizenship of her husband. Robert, a Chinese citizen, could not return to Shanghai where he would build their own house as a couple, as China had recently been overtaken by the Communists under Mao Zedong. “I felt I had lost everything,” Anita said. “I was now [without a country]; I who loved my country so much.” At the urging of Robert’s father, who had been a Brazilian citizen for nine years, Robert, together with Anita and their children Helen, Linda, Doris, Robert Alexander, and Steven, migrated to the South American nation. “It was a difficult decision,” Anita said in her memoirs. “I did not want to leave my parents…It was, I believed, important for the family to have a country again.” Anita did not have the time to paint in Brazil as she had allotted her time to homemaking and knowing the ins and outs of the country to become a proper citizen. The following years would be marked by constant travels and migration to other countries, where Robert could see the prospects of having to smoothly run his shipping business: Tokyo in Japan, Vancouver and Montreal in Canada, and Hong Kong. Anita’s Ink Blot Paintings In 1967, Anita and her family moved to Montreal from Vancouver. Around this time, all her children had now gone to boarding schools, except for Linda, who stayed with her in their home. After more than a decade of being a devoted homemaker, Anita now had that chance to fully return to her first love of painting. "With more time on my hands, I did two woodcuts for my Christmas cards and began to paint again," Anita wrote. But Anita felt stagnant. Returning to her senses, she recalled that experience when they were still residing in Tokyo, where she learned the art of ink blots from an old Jewish lady. Learning from this recollection, Anita threw ink on her canvas, then water, then oil, where they would "rush and run into each other." "You will be surprised to see how beautiful the image of 'rocks' emerges," Anita said. "That's how the Chinese do those rocks. After it is done, you will be surprised to see the 'rocks' by the sea or the logs in a forest. Of course, you improve on the rock," she said. Anita's ink blot paintings can be viewed as another successful and earnest era of experimentation after her pioneering use of egg tempera during her modernist heydays of the 1950s. Anita would say that these ink blot paintings encapsulate her painting style that is most "difficult, if not, impossible to duplicate," as "the shapes formed by the ink blots cannot be repeated as they are." Anita’s On the Beach, Reclaiming One’s Identity and Memories The work on offer in this auction, On the Beach, from that series of experimentation, was painted by Anita when the Ho family moved to Hong Kong, dictated by Robert's Magsaysay Lines' relocation of its main office from Tokyo to Hong Kong, where it would now be known as Fairmont Shipping. In Hong Kong, they established their twentieth family residence at the old Estoril court before moving to a larger apartment in Grenville house on Magazine Gap Road. On the Beach depicts four women mending and preparing the nets to be used by the men, most probably their husbands, in their fishing ventures. The ink blots cast by Anita resulted in seemingly hollow voids that exude mystery. The women's nets become diaphanous extensions of the rocks made by the ink blots, the background suggesting a mountainous landscape that evokes the terrain of Anita's Zambales youth. The scene captures Anita's recollections of spending summer vacations in her family's nipa house by the beach. But, the overall composition exudes a mystical version of an otherwise real-life-inspired setting. Artist-critic Alfredo Roces wrote in his book on Anita: "Magsaysay-Ho created these images at a time when she herself was caught in the dilemma of changing worlds, between a past home in the Philippines of her happy childhood and the promise of her family's new homeland in Canada. A disparity, the uncomfortable juggling of two worlds, is the migrant's lot. It is this edgy, uncertain, precarious condition that the artist has recorded on canvas. The anxiety and the certainty of an uprooted person shape the artist's vision, and her works from that time revealed this." Rather than entirely creating images culled from her memory, as she had always done, she let her medium speak for itself. Was it suggesting an answer that Anita probably wanted during this time, seeking to uncover why in the world she must be uprooted from the environment from which she had fond memories that inspired her to pursue her creative passion? Or was it Anita submitting to an otherworldly Being all her feelings of alienation and anxiety as a way of purging all these negative vibrations, and in the process, letting her blissful memories of days past speak clearly to her at the forefront as a way of preserving her intimate bond with her motherland, which she dearly loved and treasured? The ink blot paintings produced by Anita during her Canadian and Hong Kong periods differed in how the latter exudes more luminosity, whereas the former possesses a relatively somber palette. Roces observed that the Hong Kong period was where Anita's memories of her youth "triumph[ed] over the reality of her happy sojourn in Canada, the land where Anita's children grew up in, and where, no doubt, their own coming-of-age memories of "home" would have to reside." “[It was in Hong Kong] where I lived for 17 years,” said Anita. “I consider this time my most productive years.” In her memoirs, she speaks highly of her Hong Kong years, writing that she “played a lot of bridge” there. “The interesting shopping for me was going to Stanley market—a shopping area by the sea, where one finds clothes not found in Hong Kong stores—and exploring Hollywood Road for antiques. I guess this is what newcomers in Hong Kong do.” Anita further wrote, “I also painted as much as I could.” The relative clarity Anita achieved in her paintings in Hong Kong, where she felt the most productive and prolific, may have been because her dear Philippines was now a mere 2-hour flight away, easing her homesickness. Anita also had more time for leisure and painting, as her children now had their own lives and families to build. The mid-1970s, when Anita created On the Beach, also marked the beginning of her "Green Period," which critic Alice Guillermo described in the catalog notes for Anita's retrospective as named after "its predominant coloration." "The green that predominates is the hue of leaves, fruit, and vegetables, and the women figures share this color quality perhaps symbolically as they become like fruit in harmony with nature." In a way, Anita had claimed a resolution to her own misery by finding the meaning of home in her own family and nourishing them with warmth through her experiences of tenderness. As Roces noted, "If the present and the future were uncertain, there was warm refuge in happy memories of the past." That Anita chose to delve into ink blot painting is a testament not only to her modernist spirit of bold experimentation; it is a demonstration of Anita going into her subconscious, demonstrating a capability of profound introspection. On the Beach at Anita’s First Retrospective O n the Beach was showcased in Anita’s retrospective exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila from December 1988 to January 1989. Dubbed “The Retrospective of the Decade,” it was Anita’s first show in 10 years and marked her first-ever retrospective, celebrating her 40 years as a living legend of Philippine art. "With more time on my hands, I did two woodcuts for my Christmas cards and began to paint again," Anita wrote. As always, the retrospective’s opening night became the talk of the town, with more than 500 guests trooping to The Met to see Anita’s works and even catch a glimpse of the legendary artist, causing traffic jams and led to others abandoning their cars and rushing towards the museum. The retrospective was a microcosm of who’s who in town: Sen. Leticia Shahani, Pitoy Moreno, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, Dr. Teyet Pascual, Judy Araneta-Roxas, Bambi Harper, Gemma Cruz-Araneta, among others. Society insider Maurice Arcache even reported that many failed to properly see and scrutinize Anita’s works due to the jampacked cocktails. In the brochures and invitations, Anita wrote a personal dedication to the Filipina whom she continuously championed in her art. "I dedicate this exhibition to the women of the Philippines—the source of my inspiration—their movements and gestures, their expressions of happiness and frustrations, their diligence and shortcomings, their joy of living. I know well, for after all, I am one of them." This brings us full circle to Anita’s past, where she had always been joyous and at peace in the comfort of her fellow Filipina.
Lavanderas by the Stream signed and dated 1934 (lower left) oil on board 18 1/2” x 14 1/2” (47 cm x 37 cm) PROVENANCE: Private collection, USA On September 21, 1958, This Week released its selection of "Six Outstanding Filipino Painters," chosen by a veritable panel of judges from the various fields of the arts. Anita Magsaysay-Ho emerged triumphant, the only woman who earned a spot in the highly publicized list. The secret that earned her a spot? It's all in her depiction of women in all their glorious delight. As a fitting culmination to Anita Magsaysay-Ho's 110th birth anniversary and the worthy recognition of her maiden participation at the recently concluded 60th Venice Biennale through her 1944 Self-Portrait, the earliest known work by the revered modernist has come home to the Philippines. Here, Anita's now iconic women make their grand debut in a piece highly influenced by her esteemed professor, Fernando Amorsolo. This 1934 piece, titled Lavanderas by the Stream, is the earliest painting by Anita Magsaysay-Ho to come to the market. This work is a rarity; every monograph written about Anita has always started her chronological presentation of works in the 1940s, missing the gap that could be filled by her earliest works from the 1930s. This work fills that gap in Anita's visual chronology of her oeuvre, a veritable window into her conservative beginnings before she metamorphosed into a pioneering Filipina modernist. When Anita created this work, she was in the final year of her studies at the UP School of Fine Arts. Students in their fourth year are required to take up the course "Advanced Landscape Painting," helmed by none other than Fernando Amorsolo. A description of the course from the 1932-33 General Catalogue of the University of the Philippines details that classes in this course are conducted in the nearby open localities selected by the professor. Anita wrote in her memoirs that Amorsolo sent off his students to travel to different locations within the School of Fine Arts environs and paint there on the spot. Anita depicts in the work at hand—painted en plein air—a scene from rural Malate, particularly the vicinity of nearby De La Salle College, a less than 2-kilometer walk from the School of Fine Arts and “at the time was still a rural area," she recalled. Anita wrote in her old diary about a moment when she and her classmates/friends, Amparing and Consuelo, painted “a beautiful landscape” with “some bedraggled nipa huts among clamps of bamboos” in the background. That diary entry is accompanied by Anita's sketch reminiscing about that moment, a drawing depicting a scenery similar to the work on offer. The setting of Lavanderas by the Stream also bears similarities to a particular anecdote in Anita’s memoir, in which she waited for Amorsolo in the vicinity of La Salle to come and critique a painting she did of the locale (a story recounted in the previous essay). One can also imagine in the work on offer how Anita enthusiastically painted this piece, all the while waiting for Amorsolo to assess her progress. Amorsolo's influence can be heavily discerned, especially when viewed from the context of his plein air landscapes. There are the human figures outlined through colors and candid impastos; the short and swift strokes that seemingly pulsate and breathe life into the composition; and the contrast of areas of light and shadow achieved through the manipulation of texture and tones. Of course, there are the lavanderas—a favorite of Amorsolo and the theme of humans living in harmony with nature. Anita learned from Amorsolo the practice of priming the canvas with gray paint, resulting in a pastel-like quality that complements the luminosity of oil paint. "All of us painted our canvases in grey," Anita said to Cid Reyes in an interview. This painting is an image of radiance and serenity, which would eventually be translated into Anita's modernist practice. Even as a modernist, the "Amorsolo effect" was still apparent in the way Anita depicted her women as delightful and serene in their labor, emphasizing the dignity inherent—and that should be endowed to the most precious of all endeavors. This is much like Amorsolo, who blessed her dalaga with all the world's exuberance. While she eventually forged her formidable path to modernism, Anita never renounced her conservative upbringing. "She staunchly believes that one can learn true art only by studying the basic principles set down by the classicists," writes an article in The Sunday Times Magazine following her historic win at the 1952 AAP." For Anita, a good painting is a good painting, whether conservative or modern. What binds the modernist Anita and the pre-war, conservative Anita is that both embodied and found bliss in women at work. With the sheer warmness of its tones, the composition naturally exudes the vitality of living. Here lies Anita's joy and confidence, enlivened by the loving home where she grew up surrounded by people, especially her Nana and her mother Amalia, who nurtured her with unwavering support for her passion for the arts. Anita would say in an interview seven decades later, in May 2005: "In my works, I always celebrate the women of the Philippines. I regard them with deep admiration, and they continue to inspire me—their movements and gestures, their expressions of happiness and frustrations; their diligence and shortcomings; their joy of living. I know very well the strength, hard work, and quiet dignity of Philippine women, for after all, I am one of them." Here in this work is presented—for the very first time in Anita's canvas—the peasant and rural women whom Anita exalted, and who would also put her at the forefront of Philippine post-war painting, perfectly materialized in her historic First Prize win at the 5th AAP Annual in 1952 for her now iconic The Cooks
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Hand-signed and dated '1990' (lower right) Ed. 217/300 Offset lithograph 32 x 42 cm (12 1/2 x 16 1/2 in) Doris Ho has graciously confirmed the authenticity of this artwork
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Hand-signed and undated (lower right) and initialed on plate Ed. 62/100 Serigraph by Atelier Art Print 40 x 40 cm (15 3/4 x 15 3/4 in)
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Hand-signed and dated '1993' (lower right) Ed. 150/350 Lithograph Print size: 25 x 33 cm (10 x 13 in) Paper size: 39.4 x 45.7 cm (15 1/2 x 18 in)
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Hand-signed with dedication 'To dear Carol from . . Anita Magsaysay-Ho' (lower right) Print on canvas 33 x 25 cm (13 x 10 in)
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1924 - 2012) Signed and dated '1977' (lower right) Tapestry Image dimensions: 66 x 98 cm (26 x 38 1/2 in) Total dimensions: 185.5 x 97 cm (73 x 38 in)
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Signed and dated '1989' (lower right) Watercolor on paper 37 x 24 cm (14 1/2 x 9 1/2 in) Doris Ho has graciously confirmed the authenticity of this artwork
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Signed and dated '1959' (lower left) Ink and watercolor on paper 33 x 48 cm (13 x 19 in) A signed note from the artist is affixed to the back of the frame Accompanied by a Provenance Letter issued by Art Circle Gallery
Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012) Signed and dated '1997' (lower right) Charcoal on paper 35 x 46 cm (14 x 18 in) Accompanied by a provenance document with a photo of the artwork with the owner and the artist Exhibition: The Crucible Gallery, Mandaluyong City, 1997
PROPERTY FROM THE JESUS AND MARITESS PINEDA COLLECTION Sabungero signed (lower left) ca. 1945 - 1946 oil on canvas 15" x 10 3/4" (38 cm x 27.5 cm) LITERATURE: Roces, Alfredo. Anita Magsaysay-Ho: In Praise of Women (With Annotations on Paintings by Anita Magsaysay-Ho). Pasig City: The Crucible Workshop, 2005. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 281. WRITE UP Anita Magsaysay-Ho (May 25, 1914 - May 5, 2012) was— and is—a pre-eminent figure in the world of Filipino modern art. She was also the only female member of the Thirteen Moderns, a group of Filipino avant-garde artists. She was born in 1914 in Manila. Her father Ambrosio Magsaysay, an engineer, was Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay’s uncle. Anita was painting from the age of nine. She studied at the School of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines, under the tutelage of Filipino master painters Fabian de la Rosa, and his nephews Fernando and Pablo Amorsolo, as well as Ireneo Miranda and Vicente Rivera y Mir. She studied at Manila’s School of Design, under Victorio Edades and Enrique Ruiz. She then left in the 1930s to go to the United States, where she studied at the New York Students’ League under Kenneth Hayes Miller, Will Barnet and Robert Ward Johnson. She also studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, under Zoltan Sepeshy. She moved to New York City, where she gave painting and drawing lessons. There, she met Robert Ho from Hong Kong. They married and moved to China, where Ho’s shipping company, Magsaysay Inc., began. The couple eventually had five children and they moved frequently because of Ho’s work. They lived in Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan. Wherever she lived, Anita had a studio where she could paint. Although she was eventually identified as one of the Thirteen Moderns, in the early 1940s, the influence of her teacher Fernando Amorsolo was still clearly visible, both in terms of subject and technique. Later, her work evolved toward modernism. In the work at hand, Anita masterfully captures the roughness and vigor associated with the famed sabungero, whose pastime was, and remains to be, a ubiquitous sight in virtually every corner of the country. It is an Amorsolo subject, but treated so differently. The brushstrokes are strong, the colors are deftly applied. The technique is brute, but the charm of the sabungero and the implied rural scene comes across. Critic E. Aguilar Cruz included her among the Neo-Realists, which later evolved into the Philippine Art Gallery group, which also numbered other women artists, Lyd Arguilla and Nena Saguil. Through the 1950s, she consistently won top awards from the Art Association of the Philippines. Her compositions emphasized movement and bustling interaction by means of bold, vigorous brushstrokes, and strong tonal contrasts of light and dark, particularly when she was using egg tempera. Magsaysay-Ho’s most famous works are those identified with the everyday lives of Filipino women, who characteristically wore scarves, had slanted eyes, in angular poses. In her old age, she could not work with oils anymore, the fumes overcame her. She continued to paint until her 2009 stroke. She died three years later, just three weeks before her 98th birthday. Her paintings continue to command the highest prices for works by a Filipino artist. This painting is important because it shows Anita Magsaysay’s style in transition. (From the Ramon Villegas Archives)
