The #NationalMuseumPh celebrates the 98^th birth anniversary of National Artist Jeremias Elizalde Navarro, born #OnThisDay in 1924.

Born in Antique, Navarro studied art at the University of the Philippines Manila as one of the ten aspirants chosen from 500 hopefuls for the Ramon Roces art scholarship. However, he transferred to the University of Santo Tomas (UST) where his childhood idol, Carlos “Botong” Francisco became his teacher. He also studied under eminent artists Victorio Edades, Diosdado Lorenzo, Alejandro Celis, Bonifacio Cristobal, and Francesco Monti. Navarro graduated from UST with a degree in Fine Arts in 1951. He took further studies in New York City, USA, after which he taught at UST for nine years and briefly at the Randwick University in Australia. As an artist, Navarro passionately experimented with different media including oil, acrylic, watercolor, metal, wood, mixed media and found objects in his abstract and figurative paintings, sculptures and assemblages. 

Today, as we celebrate his birth anniversary, we feature his sculpture entitled “Man and Woman” from the National Fine Arts Collection. Navarro completed this sculpture made of wood, metal, and concrete in the 1960s. Wood is his favored material, describing how he “loves the roundness” of it. During his interview with Cid Reyes, the artist remarked, “I see a piece of wood lying around, and right away it suggests a sculptural possibility.” The genius of Navarro and his high regard for this medium, enabled him to create masterpieces that are now part of the collection of major museums. The National Fine Arts Collection holds several works of the National Artist which are also exhibited in this gallery alongside “Man and Woman”. These artworks are the following: Idiot Box Circa ’64 (1964, wood), Desaparecidos [(1996, bronze) and (undated, wood)]. You may also view his two sets of Via Crucis studies at the Museum Foundation of the Philippines Hall (Gallery X). 

Navarro passed away on June 10, 1999, and was posthumously proclaimed National Artist for Visual Arts on December 1, 1999 for his significant contributions to our rich artistic heritage.

Man and Woman is part of a body of artworks by the National Artist which was acquired through his daughter with the late painter and sculptor, Virginia Ty-Navarro, Pearl, and is among the most recent additions to the National Museum’s permanent exhibition “Lilok, Hulma, at Tipon: Modern Sculptures in the Philippines”. It may be viewed at the National Museum of Fine Arts’ Philippine Modern Sculpture Hall (Gallery XXIX) during its extended visiting hours from 9 am to 6 pm, Tuesdays to Sundays.

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Text and photo by NMP FAD

In celebration of National Heritage Month and for this week’s Art Stroll Sunday feature, we present National Artist Vicente Manansala’s 1948 oil painting, “I Believe in God”, from the National Fine Arts Collection (NFAC) on display at the GSIS Northwest Hall.

This oil on masonite was created in 1948 when Manansala was around 37 years old. This oil painting is a significant part of the national collection, being one of the artist’s early works in this style before he introduced transparent cubism, wherein geometric shapes and layers of colors were used in rendering figures and objects. This painting also shows Carlos “Botong” Francisco’s influence, being one of the painters that Manansala admires the most. “I Believe in God” depicts a family pausing from pounding rice grains to pray the Angelus. The Angelus is a prayer recited by Roman Catholics at noon or at 6 in the evening. It is also noteworthy that this was completed three years after the end of the Second World War, when Filipinos were still picking up and trying their best to rise from the horrors of the war, and the artist himself, was one of those who survived it. This oil painting is apt as we celebrate National Heritage Month with the theme “Pamanang Lokal: Binhi ng Kulturang Pilipino,” highlighting the importance of preserving and promoting local heritage within a community.

Manansala was born in Macabebe, Pampanga on January 22, 1910. He spent his childhood in Intramuros, Manila, and grew up with fellow artists Antonio Dumlao and Jose Alcantara. He worked as a newsboy, a distributor of programs in movie houses, and a billboard painter. He graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines in 1930. In 1949, he received a UNESCO scholarship grant to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Montreal, Canada for six months. In 1950, he went to France and studied at the University of Paris under a French government scholarship. His mentor, a French artist, and filmmaker Fernand Léger, taught him cubism. He was declared National Artist for Painting (1981). Manansala passed away on August 22, 1981, in Makati City.

You may view this painting inside the GSIS Northwest Hall, Gallery XXIII of the National Museum of Fine Arts. Other masterpieces of the National Artist are displayed in the other galleries on the Third Floor, namely: The International Rice Research Institute Hall (Gallery XXII) and the Philam Life Hall (Gallery XXIV).

We have numerous activities and programs this National Heritage Month! Click https://www.nationalmuseum.gov.ph/national-heritage-month/ or https://ncca.gov.ph/nationalheritagemonth/ for more information

Text by NMP-FAD
Photo by Bengy Toda

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