Cesar Legaspi: The Brave Modern

Ayala Museum opens December with a new major exhibition featuring the works of a Philippine master of Cubism
and National Artist in the Visual Arts for Painting, Cesar Legaspi, under its program Images of Nation.

Cesar Legaspi: The Brave Modern includes the artists works from the pre-war period, which show lessons in Cubism;
to the ascendancy of Neo-Realism in the 1950s and 1960s; and select large-scale works from the 1970s to the
1980s. The exhibition will run from December 2, 2014 to April 26, 2015, at the Third Floor Gallery of Ayala Museum.

The exhibition includes select paintings from the Ateneo Art Gallery, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Cultural Center of
the Philippines, Kalaw Ledesma Foundation, Inc., Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center, UCPB,
and from the private collections of Felix and Grace Ang, Louie and Liza Bate, National Ben Cabrera and Annie
Sarthou, Stanley and Abby Chan, Senator Nikki M.L. Coseteng, Silvana Diaz, Dr. Ambeth Ocampo, Lawrence Ong,
Jonathan and Stella Que, Manuel and Alice Que, Mario and Mimi Que, Paulino and Hetty Que, Mikee and Sheila
Romero, and Joanne Young.

In the halcyon and heady days in pre-war Philippines, a group of young artists were paving the way to a brave new
world of modern art. Learning from the acknowledged Father of Modern Art, Victorio Edades, the young artists, who
called themselves the Thirteen Moderns, which included Cesar Legaspi, were eager in finding new ways of visual
expression.

The work of Cesar Legaspi shows the progression and development of Philippine painting in the twentieth century
from the rigorous intellectualism of Cubism in his early paintings to the harmonious unity of stylized figuration and
tropical chromaticism at the peak of Neo-Realism.

His fragmented pictorial style, intense color, and stark social commentary contributed significantly to the acceptance
of Philippine modern art, earning his place in the pantheon of Filipino National Artists.
Cesar Legaspi (April 2, 1917 April 7, 1994) is a Filipino National Artist in painting. He was
also an art director prior to going full-time in his visual art practice in the 1960s. His early
(1940s-1960s) works are described as depictions of anguish and dehumanization of beggars
and laborers in the city. These include Man and Woman (alternatively known as Beggars)
and Gadgets. Primarily because of this early period, critics have further cited Legaspis having
reconstituted in his paintings cubisms unfeeling, geometric ordering of figures into a social
expressionism rendered by interacting forms filled with rhythmic movement.

Today, April 2, is the 97th birth anniversary of the National Artist Cesar Legaspi. Born
on 1917 in Tondo, Manila, he is recognized as one of the pioneers of neo-realism in
the country. Among his achievements were the Araw ng Maynila award for painting
in 1972, Professional Award for Painting from the University of the Philippines
Alumni Association in 1978, Gawad CCP Award for Visual Arts and Tanglaw ng Lahi
award from Ateneo de Manila University in 1990. Legaspi was named National Artist
for Painting in 1990. He died on April 7, 1994, at the age of 77.

cesar Legaspi, awarded National Artist for Visual Arts in 1990, is a pioneer of modern art in the
Philippines. He belonged to two artist groups: Thirteen Moderns and Neo-realists, both of
which instrumented the acceptance of modernism in a country where most preferred realism.
Cesars style of painting and illustration uses the western approach Cubism but is of genuine
Filipino context, traceable to his experiences and observance of the Philippines before and after
World War I. His paintings are also known for their color palettes, consistent elements such as
the human torso, man at work, and post-war scenes, and themes of struggle and labor. Cesar is
most known for creating the classic pieces Stairway to Heaven, Mother and Child, Three
Musicians, and Kargador.

CESAR TORRENTE LEGASPI (b. Tondo Manila 2 Apr 1917 d. Metro Manila 7 Apr
1994)

A National Artist in painting, Legaspi was the son of Manuel Legaspi and Rosario
Torrente. He was married to VitalianaKaligdan with whom he had five children. His
daughter, Celeste, is one of the most gifted proponents of Filipino popular music.

Legaspi earned his Certificate of proficiency at the University of the Philippines School
of Fine Arts in 1936. He then pursued art studies abroad as a scholar at the Cultura
Hispanic, in Madrid, 1953-1954. He subsequently entered the Academie Ramon in
Paris, France.
Legaspi espoused the cause of modem art from its early years and nurtured it with his
fellow pioneering modernists, Carlos V, Francisco, Galo B. Ocampo, Hernando R.
Ocampo, and Vicente Manasala, to full maturity. Today, he is the most active surviving
member of the Thirteen Moderns. While his work shows the influence of cubism,
cubisms rigorous intellectual approach of its intellectual phase in Legaspis works
gives way to the more harmonious aspect of its synthetic phase. There is a facetting of
figures into larger planes which overlap and cut through space in transparent curvilinear
rhythms and which achieve a richly textured orchestration of hues and tones. Except for
his earlier monochromatic canvases, Legaspis paintings fully release the expressive
potential of color, creating a sensuous chromatic ambience with a variety of
subjects from dancers and flower gardens, to dynamic street scene.

His early paintings, from the period immediately before and after the war, reflect his
personal reaction to the national trauma. Man and Woman (also entitled Beggars),
1945, in an expressionist idiom involving distortion, shows a couple in rags amidst the
skeletons of buildings which we broken like surrealist sculpture. Another important work,
Gadgets, 1947, done in two versions, reflects the increasing importance of
machines in the post-war industrialization period, as well as what he perceived was the
insidious threat of human metamorphosing into machine.

Legaspi spent many years as magazine illustrator and artistic director in advertising
agencies, while he took time in between his work to do paintings. In 1963 he held a one
person show at the Luz Gallery. This marked the beginning of an active phase with
major pieces, such as Chiaroscuro, in which rocks and stone quarries become his
central image and symbol and in which structure is the predominant concern. Spatial
depth is suggested by the darker tonalities of the recesses in the granite rock that half
conceals organic forms, like curling fetuses, embedded within, In these and subsequent
works, Legaspi strove towards an artistic language based on the integrity of shapes and
figures that would convey an entire range of values, from strength to sensitivity, power
to grace, dynamism to lyricism.

In 1968 Legaspi finally left advertising to devote his time to painting. His subsequent
works significantly modified the cubist idiom by rhythmic curvilinear lines and planes
contrary to the angularity of the original style. From 1974 onward his paintings became
more chromatic, sometimes even effulgent with color; layers of transparent passages
create prismatic effects Figures dynamically cut through space in gestural
movements. Light enhances color and form or dematerializes and dissolves them into
airy transparencies, creating resonances in space. The human figure, in its well
articulated muscular and structural frame, increasingly becomes an eloquent vehicle for
expression, while a plav of contrasts ensues between organic form and geometric
structure, transparency and solidity, the flexible and the inexorable, tensions that
generate the vitality of Legaspis arts. In 1976 Legaspi did a number of multilayered
paintings on wood panel to give actual depth and shadows to the illusion of spatial
movement. He has also done a large diptych with a crucified torso spanning the two
panels; the graffiti of the times are scattered ever the wall like background.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Legaspi paintings that deal with universal human
experience, such as The Survivor. These large, heroic canvases, done in his dynamic
style, convey the surging, straining movements of human beings in aspiration, struggle,
and triumph. Aside from being dramatic metaphors of human condition, they are also
visual correlatives of inner moods. The biota imagery explores organic and
visceral movements beneath the surface where human beings are one with nature,
woven of the same tissues as the trees. The images of struggle and nightmare
transpose onto the imagery of art the emotional tensions of everyday that seek
resolution in dreams. In 1978 Legaspi held a big retrospective show at the Museum
of Philippine Art, Ten years later he held a major three-part exhibit, including the
Jeepney series in which the dynamism of the imagery bring together the spatial and
temporal dimensions, dream and reality, the past and the present.

Legaspis awards from the Art Association of the Philippines are: fourth prize, Sick
Child, 1948, first prize, Gadgets, 1944; fourth prize, PIanters, 1949; and third prize,
Ritual, 1951. He won first prize for Stairway to Heaven in the Manila club Art Exhibition
in 1949. His Symphony won an honorable mention award in the Manila Grand Opera
House Exhibition in 1950. He received the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinagan award
from the City of Manila in 1972. He received the Gawad CCP para sa Sining award from
the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1990. He was proclaimed National Artist in
painting in 1990.
Cesar Legaspi, honored as a National Artist in Visual Arts in 1990, is considered the pioneer
of neo-realism in the Philippines. Aside from the monochromatic works in his early years, he
exploited the full potential of color in his paintings. A proponent of modern art in the
country, Legaspi developed cubism in the Philippine context. He was also identified as one
of the Thirteen Moderns, a group of modernists led by Victorio C. Edades whose works went
against the conservative academic art of that period.

Legaspi was born to Manuel Legaspi and Rosario Torrente on April 2, 1917 in Tondo, Manila.
He took up painting for one term at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts
before he decided to take commercial art courses instead. There he received medals for
perspective and illustration projects. He earned his Certificate of Proficiency in 1936, after
which he continued his education in art under Pablo Amorsolo. He went to Madrid in 1953
and pursued Art Studies under a scholarship at the Cultura Hispanic until 1954. He also
went to Paris to study at the Academie Ranson for one month under Henri Goetz.

Back in the Philippines, he had his first one-man show at the Luz Gallery in 1963. While this
led to an active phase with his major pieces, he also worked as a magazine illustrator and
artistic director at an advertising agency. He finally left the agency in 1968 to focus on his
painting.

During his career as an artist, he had the opportunity to be part of several exhibits abroad,
including the First Plastic Arts Conference in Rome in 1953, the Sao Paolo Biennial in
Graphic Arts in 1967 and 1969, and the Wraxall Gallery in London with Filipino artists
Malang and Bencab in 1982. Apart from this, he holds the record of five retrospective
exhibitions at different venues: the Museum of Philippine Art in 1978, the National Museum
and the Metropolitan Museum in 1988, and the Luz Gallery and the Cultural Center of the
Philippines in 1990. He was an active member of the Art Association of the Philippines and
was part of the Neo-Realists. He was also the head of the Saturday Group artists from 1978
until his death on April 7, 1994.

Legaspis major works include:

1945 Man and Woman 1947 Gadgets

Achievements:

1944 4th Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Gadgets

1948 1st Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Sick Child
1949 4th Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Planters
1949 1st Prize, Manila Club Art Exhibition, for Stairway to Heaven
1950 Honorable Mention in the Manila Grand Opera House Exhibition, for Symphony
1951 3rd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Ritual
1972 Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, from the City of Manila
1981 Critics Choice Award for Five Outstanding Living Artists
1990 Gawad CCP para sa Sining Award, from the Cultural Center of the Philippines