Material Inspirations, a new exhibition opening soon at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. The M, brings together for the first time two women artists who have shaped the trajectory of modern art in the Philippines.
Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Nena Saguil lived lives that intersected at many points. They were both born in 1914. They were both classmates in the fine arts program of the University of the Philippines, both graduating in the same year, 1933, under the directorship of the master Fabian de la Rosa. Both went to to blaze a unique path and develop their own unique language of painterly expression, pursuing their practice with remarkable spirit in spite of the the constraints of an art world and a society entrenched in the patriarchy. Both furthered their studies overseas, Anita at the Art Students League in New York and the Cranbrook Academy in Michigan; Nena to Paris to study at the Ecole d’Art Américaines at the Château de Fontainbleu and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Anita was the only woman in the mythical circle of Victorio Edades called the Thirteen Moderns; and Nena claimed her place among men in the seminal exhibition of non-objective art at the Philippine Art Gallery in 1953.
Curated by Patrick Flores, the exhibition puts these two formidably talented women side by side and explores the media through which the artists expressed their distinct sensibilities: egg tempera for Anita, and pen-and-ink for Nena. Through a careful attention to the said media and the techniques by which they are animated, the modernism of their art becomes more intimately and deeply felt, rendered in forms that gain luminosity and depth.
“Anita and Nena were intuitively committed to their personas as women and artists, turning to exemplars in European art such as Bruegel and Kandinsky and devoting their time to the trance-like completion of form with finesse, conscientiousness, and vitality. They were grounded in the fields and atmospheres of memory and fantasy wherever their fascinations took them, whether quaint or abstract, in a marketplace of teeming smoked fish in Manila or in an ascetic attic in the heady cosmopolis of Paris.”
Material Inspirations opens to the public on 9 November 2024 and runs until 8 December 2024.
Discover more from Great Travel Philippines
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Material Inspirations, a new exhibition opening soon at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. The M, brings together for the first time two women artists who have shaped the trajectory of modern art in the Philippines.
Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Nena Saguil lived lives that intersected at many points. They were both born in 1914. They were both classmates in the fine arts program of the University of the Philippines, both graduating in the same year, 1933, under the directorship of the master Fabian de la Rosa. Both went to to blaze a unique path and develop their own unique language of painterly expression, pursuing their practice with remarkable spirit in spite of the the constraints of an art world and a society entrenched in the patriarchy. Both furthered their studies overseas, Anita at the Art Students League in New York and the Cranbrook Academy in Michigan; Nena to Paris to study at the Ecole d’Art Américaines at the Château de Fontainbleu and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Anita was the only woman in the mythical circle of Victorio Edades called the Thirteen Moderns; and Nena claimed her place among men in the seminal exhibition of non-objective art at the Philippine Art Gallery in 1953.
Curated by Patrick Flores, the exhibition puts these two formidably talented women side by side and explores the media through which the artists expressed their distinct sensibilities: egg tempera for Anita, and pen-and-ink for Nena. Through a careful attention to the said media and the techniques by which they are animated, the modernism of their art becomes more intimately and deeply felt, rendered in forms that gain luminosity and depth.
“Anita and Nena were intuitively committed to their personas as women and artists, turning to exemplars in European art such as Bruegel and Kandinsky and devoting their time to the trance-like completion of form with finesse, conscientiousness, and vitality. They were grounded in the fields and atmospheres of memory and fantasy wherever their fascinations took them, whether quaint or abstract, in a marketplace of teeming smoked fish in Manila or in an ascetic attic in the heady cosmopolis of Paris.”
Material Inspirations opens to the public on 9 November 2024 and runs until 8 December 2024.
Share this:
Discover more from Great Travel Philippines
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.