91st Birth Anniversary of Ang Kiukok

The #NationalMuseumPH celebrates the 91st birth anniversary of National Artist for Visual Arts Ang Kiukok, born #OnThisDay in 1931 by featuring “Still Life” — his 1974 watercolor from the National Fine Arts Collection (NFAC). 

2001 National Artist for Visual Arts Ang Kiukok was born to Chinese immigrants Vicente Ang and Chin Lim. Born in Davao City, Kiukok started schooling at a Chinese high school, and in 1947, learned to create portraits in charcoal. After five years, Kiukok left Davao for Manila and took art classes at the University of Santo Tomas from 1952 to 1954, but he had to stop because of financial constraints. 

Ang Kiukok started his artistic career by producing watercolor paintings. His skill in this painting medium can be traced to his training in Chinese calligraphy. In 1954, at the age of 23, he held his first one-man exhibition, composed of more than 20 watercolor paintings. National Artist Vicente Manansala (1910-1981), one of his mentors at the UST, observed the artist’s proficiency in watercolor that Manansala even showed Kiukok’s watercolors to his students. In this painting, watermelon slices are on top of a table rendered in his signature cubist-expressionist style.  

Roces (2000) mentioned that “most of Kiukok’s watercolors are still life because this medium excels in the simple and spontaneous. Kiukok applies a wet on wet technique along with his direct “brushmanship” to render a watermelon’s red succulence.” 

National Artist Ang Kiukok died on May 9, 2005, in Quezon City at the age of 74. 

“Still Life” is exhibited on the executive floor of the National Museum of Fine Arts.  You may visit other works of the National Artist at the Pillars of Philippine Modernism Gallery (Gallery XIX) and at The Philippine Center New York Core Collection of 1974: A Homecoming Exhibition (Galleries XXVII and XXVIII).

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Text by NMP FAD
Photo by Bengy Toda

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