Mud on one of the paintings?

For the #OnThisDay feature of the #NationalMuseumPH celebrating the 80th birth anniversary of Filipino international artist David Medalla, we highlight his 1957 “Self-Portrait” from the National Fine Arts Collection (NFAC).

Medalla completed his “Self-Portrait” in 1957 when he was 15 years old. In 2017, the artist visited the National Museum of Fine Arts, as shown in this photo.  He told the staff that he used mud in this oil painting — an early manifestation of his curiosity and artistic genius. This painting is one of the artworks in the NFAC that a Filipino artist did at a very young age. 

The pioneering figure in kinetic art, participatory art, and performance art was born in Manila in 1942. At 14, American poet and his poetry tutor at Camp Rising Sun, Mark van Doren, recommended him for admission at Columbia University in New York City. After his studies in New York City, he moved to London and became one of the leading art figures in the UK capital. He is best remembered for his “Cloud Canyon” sculptures or bubble machines. 

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), a renowned French artist, presented Medalla with his “Medallic Sculpture” in the 1960s. This was his tribute to Medalla’s “Cloud Canyon” sculptures — cementing Medalla’s prominence and place in the international art scene. In 2000, he launched the London Biennale, “a biennale open to every artist regardless of age, sex, ethnic origin, and artistic language or style.” 

Medalla’s artworks are included in the collection of major museums worldwide, namely: The National Gallery Singapore, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He joined numerous international exhibitions and lectured at many institutions and universities here in the Philippines and abroad. 

The artist passed away on December 28, 2020, in Manila.  Still, his legacy and inspiration continue to live in the number of artists his life and art have touched.

We are now accepting walk-in guests! View “Self-Portrait” at the Pillars of Philippine Modernism Gallery, (Gallery XVIII) of the National Museum of Fine Arts on your next tour. Browse through this website for more information. 

#OnThisDay
#MuseumFromHome
#DavidMedalla

Text by NMP-FAD

Photos by Bengy Toda and NMP-FAD

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

This #NationalWomensMonth2022, the #NationalMuseumPH explores the concept of beauty and aesthetics among the different groups in the Philippines. For our #MuseumFromHome series this week, we look at the pre-colonial practice of intentional cranial modification. 

In one of the earliest documentations of skull molding in the Philippines, Jesuit priest Fr. Diego Bobadilla recorded in 1640 the practice among Visayan locals of binding and compressing the heads of newly born infants between two flat boards. The broad faces and receding and flattened foreheads, which resulted from the cranial modification, produced a head shape that the Visayans considered beautiful and ideal. Variations of the modification depended on the pressure applied and the placement of the rod on the frontal and occipital bones. Some had both flattened foreheads and backs while others only had flattened foreheads. In some cases, the resulting form was asymmetrical due to uneven pressure.

Historian and anthropologist William Henry Scott, on the other hand, recorded the Visayan’s use of a device called tangad, a comb-like thin rod which was bound to the forehead of the infant and secured by bandages wrapped around and fastened behind the head. The pressure from the rod hindered frontal skull development but instead, forced it backward, causing the head to grow higher at the rear. 

In the Vocabulario de la Lengua Visaya,the 1711 lexicon compiled by Jesuit priest Fr. Mateo Sanchez, the term tinangad was used by the Visayans to refer to those who had achieved the desired head shapeor puyak, referring to the flatness of the back. In contrast, the unmolded skulls were referred to as ondo, or “having the appearance of a hunchback’s hump.” 

Sites in central and southern Philippines, such as Romblon, Marinduque, Masbate, Albay, Samar, Cebu, Bohol, Surigao, Butuan, and Davao have provided evidence that supports the existence of the practice of cranial modification among the early Filipino communities. The number of grave goods found in these sites, such as gold ornaments, gold-pegged teeth, jewelry, and Asian trade wares, suggests that skull molding was a practice among the elites. Thus, it may have also served as a symbol of status, and not merely of beauty, particularly in areas from where the modified crania were recovered. 

#NationalWomensMonth
#CranialModification
#WhatIsBeauty

Text and poster by the NMP Ethnology Division and illustrations by J.C. Bruma.

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

Built Tradition of the Balon at the Nuestra Señora de Caysasay Church-Convent Complex

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  01 Balon de Santa Lucia (1)

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  02 Balon Rectified

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  03 Balon (1)

The #NationalMuseumPh commemorates the 85^th birth anniversary of contemporary visual artist Renato A. Rocha,  born #OnThisDay in 1937, by featuring his 1973 wood relief- “Air Flight”.

Born in Uson, Masbate on March 8, 1937, Renato Rocha, also known as Rene, was the second among four children of Ramon Rocha and Consuelo Autor. Growing up in Tabaco, Albay, Rene would mold animal and human figures out of clay soil from termite hills (nuno sa punso) in rice fields. After attending high school in Masbate, he moved to Manila to study at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts where he majored in Sculpture and graduated in 1963. As a young artist, he worked with Filipino master sculptors Anastacio Caedo from 1959-1960 and Napoleon Abueva from 1961-1965, later proclaimed a National Artist for Visual Arts in 1976 – both of which had tremendous influence on Rene’s artistry. 

Rocha preferred using kamagong, molave, and narra wood sourced through his friends from the province in making his abstract figures of animals, families, women, and other free forms. In 1978, he had his first solo exhibition at the Manila Peninsula to which Prof. Eric Torres commented “in his hands, Philippine wood never looked more luxurious, warmer and richer, enhancing the distinctive sensuous forms of his sculpture.” He was commissioned for several major works by the Far East Bank and Trust Company, UP Los Baños, Malacañang, Ford Foundation, and Development Academy of the Philippines, to name a few. He also received various awards from 1960 until 1980 including the Araw ng Manila Award in Sculpture. 

Rocha passed away on August 24, 2001, from chronic liver disease. He was survived by his wife and seven children who once assisted Rene in making his commissioned works.

The National Museum of Fine Arts is honored to be the home of several artworks by the renowned sculptor. One of the pieces displayed in our “Lilok, Hulma, at Tipon: Modern Sculptures in the Philippines” exhibition is “Air Flight”, a 1973 wood relief, which, based on archival materials acquired from the artist’s family, is believed to be the work commissioned for the Ford Foundation in 1973, and now an important part of the National Fine Arts Collection. 

Other works attributed to Rene Rocha from the Collection of the National Library of the Philippines, along with other modern sculptures by leading Filipino artists can be found in the “Lilok, Hulma, at Tipon” exhibition at the Philippine Modern Sculptures Hall (Gallery XXIX) of the National Museum of Fine Arts. 

#MuseumFromHome
#RenatoRocha
#ReneRocha
#LilokHulmaAtTipon
#PhilippineModernSculptures
#PhilippineArt
#AbstractArt

Text and photo by NMP FAD

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines