vicente manansala
DESCRIPTION
Biography of Vicente Manansala and his Works.TRANSCRIPT
Vicente
Manansala
• He is the son of Perfecto Q. Manansala and Engracia Silva. He married Hermenegilda (Hilda) Diaz, with whom he had one child. As a newsboy and bootblack in Intramuros, he expressed his early creativity designing kites and making charcoal sketches. At 15, he studied under the turn-of-the-century painter Ramon Peralta while doing signboards for a painting shop.
• Vicente Silva Manansala (January 22, 1910 - August 22, 1981) was a Philippine
cubist painter and illustrator.• Manansala was born in Macabebe, Pampanga. From 1926 to 1930, he
studied at the U.P. School of Fine Arts. In 1949, Manansala received a six-month
grant by UNESCO to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Banff and Montreal, Canada.
In 1950, he received a nine-month scholarship to study at the Ecole de Beaux
Arts in Paris by the French government.
•Manansala's canvases were described as masterpieces that
brought the cultures of the barrio and the city together. His Madonna
of the Slums is a portrayal of a mother and child from the
countryside who became urban shanty residents once in the city. In his Jeepneys, Manansala combined
the elements of provincial folk culture with the congestion issues of
the city.
•Manansala developed transparent cubism, wherein the "delicate tones, shapes, and patterns of figure and environment are masterfully superimposed". A fine example of Manansala using this "transparent and translucent" technique is his composition, Kalabaw (Carabao).
• As a member of the Thirteen Moderns and the neo-realists, he was at the
forefront of the modernist movement in the country. With the issues of
national culture and identity in focus after WWII his works were those of the other early modernists which
reflected the social environment and expressed the native sensibility. He
held his first one-person show at the Manila Hotel in 1951.
•Manansala's vision of the city and his fundamentally native Filipino approach to his subjects would influence numerous artists who took up his folk themes within an urban context. Among those who show his influence are Mauro Malang Santos, with his own version of folk romanticism in paintings which convey the fragile,
•makeshift character of the 1950s, and others from the University of Santo Tomas where Manansala
taught for a time, such as Antonio Austria, Angelito Antonio, and Mario
Parial. Like him, they draw their inspiration from the folk, their occupations and pleasures. He
influenced Manuel Baldemor, whose roots are in Paete, Laguna, as well as
some Laguna lakeshore artists.
•His works distinguish him as the pioneer of transparent cubism in
the country and one of the prewar “Thirteen Moderns”.
Manansala immortalized in his paintings the reality seen by
someone who lived to see the ravages during and after the
Second World War.
• His images of postwar Manila’s urban landscape included makeshift shanties, women vendors, jeepneys, beggars and cock fighters, and depicted the search for national identity after the war. All of them turned into pulsating images through cubism and his knack for using layers and planes to make space explode while staying true to the geometric shapes of his subjects.
• At 15, he entered the preparatory school of then leading scenographic painter Ramon Peralta, where he learned to draw while doing signboards for a painting shop. He took courses at the School of Fine Arts in UP while working as billboard painter and then as illustrator and layout artist for Philippine Herald and Photo News – all this, while doing hard labor on the side during the construction of the Ipo Dam. He also became part of Liwayway and Saturday Evening News magazines years after.
•When the war broke out, most of his works in his house in
Intramuros were not salvaged. He moved his family to Cavite and Pampanga. To support his
family, he worked as a fisherman and did portraits in
exchange for palay or rice.
•Going back to the city after the war, Manansala also painted several historical murals including the Stations of the Cross for UP Diliman Chapel, mural for Philippine Heart Center, and the fresco mural for the National Press Club.
• Achievements:• 1941 – 1st Prize, National Art Exhibition, UST, for Pounding Rice • 1950 – 1st Prize, Manila Grand Opera House Exhibition, for Barong-Barong #1 • 1950 – 1st Prize, Art Association of the Philippines First Annual Art Competition, for Banaklaot • 1953 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Kahig (Scratch) • 1955 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Fish Vendors
• • 1955 – 3rd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Best-Served, Well-Gained • 1957 – Outstanding UP Alumnus • 1962 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Give Us This Day • 1962 – Best in Show, Art Association of the Philippines, for Give Us This Day • 1963 – Republic Cultural Heritage Award • 1970 – Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, from the City of Manila
• • 1955 – 3rd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Best-Served, Well-Gained
• 1957 – Outstanding UP Alumnus • 1962 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Give Us This Day • 1962 – Best in Show, Art Association of the Philippines, for Give Us This Day • 1963 – Republic Cultural Heritage Award • 1970 – Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, from the City of Manila
•Well-Gained, 1955; second prize, Give Us This Day, 1962; and best in show, Give Us This Day, 1962.
He received the Republic Cultural Heritage Award in 1963. He also received the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award from the City of Manila in 1970 He was proclaimed National Artist in
Painting in 1982.
• Vicente Manansala, a National Artist of the Philippines in Visual Arts, was a direct influence to his fellow Filipino neo-realists: Malang, Angelito
Antonio, Norma Belleza and Baldemor. The Honolulu Academy of Arts, the
Lopez Memorial Museum (Manila), the Philippine Center (New York City) and the
Singapore Art Museum are among the public collections holding work by Vicente Manansala. Manansala died in Makati in
1981 and proclaimed NATIONAL ARTIST OF THE PHILIPPINES. (posthumous)
