Résumé

“After the Day’s Toil”

The untimely demise of her second son, Ramsee in

1990, put a damper in Josie’s creative urge. But

the sudden eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 served

to awaken her slumbering art. In 1992, she joined a group of Artists from Angeles dubbed as

“ARTRUPTION” at the Cultural Center of the

Philippines.

On a trip to Belgium in 1998, Josie and Ben made a

side trip to Paris where she visited Musee D’Orsay

and the Musee de Louvre where she saw the Mona

Lisa and the paintings of Jacques-Louis David who is famous for his huge, dramatic canvasses of

Napoleon and other historical figures, and the works

of other Impressionists. She and Ben also visited

the house and garden of Claude Monet in Giverny.

Then again, Josie and Ben flew to Italy in

September of 2002 and viewed the magnificent St.

Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican in Rome and its imposing, spectacular, and its breath-taking

architecture. During the visit to the Sistine Chapel,

Josie was awed at how Michelangelo was able to

create this great and enduring masterpiece at the

chapel’s ceiling. She also admired the beautiful marble statues “The Pieta” by Michelangelo and

his “David” in Florence.

Since she was a little girl, Josie has been hearing of Rivello from her cousin Elisa whose Italian father inherited a three-hundred-year-old house. It has been Josie’s fondest wish to visit Rivello,

a medieval city on top of the Apennine Mountains south of Naples. She painted on-the-spot

Infront of Monet’s house in Giverny near Paris

watercolors of this beautiful city and the neighboring seaside

cities like Maratea. A side trip to Salerno for a three-day

cruise to the stunning lovely coastal cities of Amalfi, Positano

and Capri made the trip complete.

After attending the Rotary International Convention in June

2005, Josie revisited the Art Institute of Chicago to view

again her favorite paintings by Claude Monet and other

French impressionists and the American Impressionist Mary Cassatt as well as Post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne and Paul

Gauguin. She was surprised to learn that the biggest

collection of impressionist art is in the United States.

In June 2006, Josie again went to Europe, this time in

Sweden and Denmark to attend the Rotary International

Convention. She visited the famous tourist spots like the

Tivoli Gardens (an amusement park covering 82,717 square meters right in the center of Copenhagen. Like an oasis, it is

also a miniature botanical garden filled with several species

of colorful flowering trees and shrubs). It is not only one of

oldest amusement parks, it is said that it gave Walt Disney the idea for Disneyland. A visit to

Copenhagen is not complete without visiting the most famous of the fairy tale characters of

Hans Christian Andersen, “Den Lille Havfrue” or The Little Mermaid. This bronze life-size statue

was created by sculptor donated by Carlsberg’s very famous brewer, Carl Jacobsen and was

located in an oasis in the heart of Copenhagen Harbor and temporary home to some of the

most magnificent cruise liners in Europe. Though very small in size as compared to the massive marble sculptures of Michelangelo and Bernini in Rome, the Little Mermaid is nonetheless the

most visited statue in Copenhagen.

An old RIvello Doorway (watercolor)

Through the years, Josie has done a lot of portraits of her family and friends in oil and pastel.

She has joined various group shows in Angeles City and Manila. She loves her garden and has

done several scenes of it and continues to paint still-life of flowers, fruits and vegetables in oil

and in watercolor. She avoids having exhibits that depict only one subject using only one

medium as she thinks it is quite boring, so she mixes still-lifes, landscapes, and portraits to give

variety and spice in all of her exhibits. She continues to paint at her studio in Villa Gloria in

Angeles City and now grows bonsais, herbs and vegetables in her garden where she recently

added two waterfalls to help give her inspiration whenever she paints in her studio.

EDUCATION:

University of Santo Tomas, Manila - 1962

Watercolor Workshop with Dong Kingman (Hong Kong and China) - 1983

Workshop in Pastel Portraiture with Daniel Greene (North Salem, New York) - 1986

DISCIPLINES: Painting

MEDIUMS:

Oil, Soft Pastel

Oil Pastel

Watercolor

Acrylic

INFLUENCES:

Claude Monet

John Singer Sargent

STYLES:

Realism

Impressionism Expressionism

TECHNIQUE: “Alla Prima”

SUBJECTS:

Landscape

Portrait

Still Life

At Piazza Navonna in Rome In Capri with the “Faraglioni” in the background

“Den Lille Havfrue”, the Little Mermaid at the Copenhagen harbor

“Working from life gives me controlled confidence. My technique is traditional with realistic/

impressionistic/expressionistic flavor. I try to capture capture the character and features of my

subjects at moments of instinctive gesture, or repose, while controlling design and composition

to present a grace or style to each piece. As compared to copying from photographs wherein

the painting becomes flat, painting portraits from life lets me get the sparkle in the eyes of my

sitter to give it more soul. To study from life allows me to simplify the truth; it affords me the

ability to pursue my art as a life-long venture.

I seek to capture on canvas the azure skies, the lush trees and the mountains of Angeles

and Pampanga, my beloved province. I focus on the openness of the green rice fields on the

Central Plain in contrast to the imposing blue mountain ranges in the distance. The bright

yellow sun rising on Mt. Arayat, and the fiery vermillion sunsets behind Mt. Pinatubo constantly

awaken an emotional response to me. I try to observe the effect of light and its movement,

color shifts of warm to cool, and how shapes and design occur. I like dramatic light and shadow

and also cloudy skies. For my colorful still-lifes of flowers and fruits, figure paintings and

portraits, I like to use strong or muted colors of different intensity in thick painterly brush

strokes done “alla prima” (in one sitting), and once I have dubbed the colors on the painting,

hardly touch them again, so as not to lose their spontaneity. I also like to share what I have

learned to children, and for the last ten years have conducted a three-week summer art

workshop for children aged 6 to 16 at the Museo Ning Angeles, our City Museum.”

Raoul’s Vignette (soft pastel)

Painting a still-life of roses in Los Angeles, CA.

Hibiscus (Soft Pastel) Mt. Pinatubo prior to the eruption (oil)

Caimito and Casuy (oil)

Rambutan and Blue Vase (oil)

Josie with several of her oil paintings

Mt. Arayat viewed from Mimosa Golf and Country Club (oil)

Tropical Fruits and Green Vase (oil)

Bulanglang Bangus, Paro at Alimasag (oil)

Pakbit (oil)

Macopa and Chinese Vase (oil)

Micky Mouse (oil)

Calachuchi (oil)

Bale Maragul (oil)

Roses in Black Australian Vase (oil) Roses from Raf’s Garden (oil)

Lake Dal at Shrinagar in Kashmir (acrylic)

Gulmarg, Kashmir in Early Spring (acrylic)

Born in Angeles City, then a small town in the heart of Pampanga, Josefina Dizon Henson, or

Josie for short, always knew she would spend her life as an artist. She grew up in a household filled with music and art as her mother, Ines Sadie Henson-Dizon was a piano student of Sister

Baptista Battig before she married Vicente Alvarez Dizon in 1929. She learned her art from the

guidance of her elder brother Dan, who learned the rudiments of drawing from their father, the

late Professor Vicente Alvarez Dizon of the University of the Philippines.

Professor Dizon earned his Diploma in Art from the Yale University School of Fine Arts in

1936. In 1939, at the historic International Competition on Contemporary Art of 79 Nations at

the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, California his painting titled “After the Day’s Toil” won First Place by popular vote. The entry of Spain by Salvador Dali won second place, and the

entry of the United States by Robert Philipp placed third. The French Impressionist Maurice

Utrillo also had an entry but did not win.

After high school, Josie enrolled at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila for a course in Fine

Arts. Among her professors were National Artist Victorio Edades in Art History, Galo B. Ocampo in Design and Color, Antonio Garcia Llamas in Portraiture, Virgina Ty-Navarro in Freehand

Drawing, Antonio Celis in Still-Life Painting, Diosdado Lorenzo in Landscape Painting and

Professor Jose Monti in Sculpture.

After graduating in 1962 with a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree, major in painting, Josie worked

initially as Art Editor of “The Grade Teacher”, a national magazine for Filipino teachers. In

addition, she taught Landscape Painting and Anatomy of the Human Body at the College of Fine

Arts of the University of the East (UERM) in Quezon City. During this period Josie also attended German Language lessons at the Goethe Haus in Manila.

She later moved back to Angeles City in 1967 after she married Dr. Ruben G. Henson, Jr. an

EENT specialist. In the years that followed, after the arrival of her children, three boys in a row,

Raoul and a girl, Josie lay down her brushes in favor of motherhood but her heart always

belonged to the Arts. Her travels to the United States of America and to Europe served as

inspirations to further inspire her to paint again.

On a trip to the United States in 1975, Josie was exposed to great museums like the New York Metropolitan Museum, Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Smithsonian Institute in

Washington D.C., and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she

saw for the first time the huge beautiful portraits done by John Singer Sargent, her favorite

portrait artist whose numerous works were being shown at the said Museum and also at

Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston.

In 1978, Josie and her husband Ben’s travel to India and Kashmir served as an inspiration and

she had her first one-man show; which depicted many sceneries and colorful flowers of India and Kashmir at “The Gallery” of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Manila in 1979. In 1980, Josie had a

two-man show with artist “Bodgie” Marella Ocampo also at The Gallery of the Hyatt Regency.

In 1983, Josie took a Watercolor Workshop with Dong Kingman the famous American-born

Watercolorist. Given by the Hewitt brothers, this was held in Hong Kong and Mainland China for

three weeks where she toured and painted on-the-spot in Hong Kong, Soochow, Guilin, Wuxi,

Beijing, Canton, Shanghai and the Great Wall. One of her memorable moments was painting

The Great Wall of China on-the-spot together with Dong Kingman and being critiqued by him

afterwards.

Josie took another workshop in 1986, this time in Pastel Portrait Painting with famous Portrait

Artist Daniel Greene in North Salem, New York.

A trip to Europe in 1989 gave Josie a chance to view the works of old masters at the

Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam like Rembrandt, Jan Vermeer, Franz Hals, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc.

and in other museums in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany. In Switzerland she visited

the Picasso Museum.

JOSIE DIZON HENSON

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Squatter with a Green Thumb (watercolor)

LIfe-size Portrait of Butch (oil)

Life-size Portrait of Victorio Edades (oil)

Life-size Portrait of Abe Cruz in his Studio (oil)

A landscape painting (of my garden) in progress (oil)

Young Butch and Bougainvilla (acrylic)

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