LEON Gallery’s mid-year auction 2017 was the most breathtaking selection to date of highly important works put together in a single sale. Jaime Ponce de Leon, director of the gallery, as well as curators Ramon N. Villegas and Lisa Guerrero Nakpil selected some of the most dazzling pieces of highly sought-after masterpieces that were auctioned off on June 10 at the Leon Gallery (www.leon-gallery.com).
Works from two of the artists that were featured at the Venice Biennale were included, namely: Fernando Zobel in the Spanish Pavilion in 1962, and Jose Joya in the Philippine Pavilion in 1964. Both are National Artists. Incidentally, Fernando Zobel returns to the spotlight in an official collateral event of this year’s Biennale, at the Fondaco Marcello, that runs until November 26.
At Leon Gallery’s auction, Zobel was represented by two works, including a stunning homage to Francisco de Zurbaran’s Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose (1633) and now a jewel in the crown at the Norton Simon Museum in the US. Zobel was influenced by various European artists including Velasquez and Turner. According to Don Rafael Perez-Madero, internationally renowned expert on Zobel, this work is a second version of another one in a prestigious private collection.
Nakpil noted that Carcass (1962) by Jose Joya was, in fact, exhibited at the 32nd Venice Biennale, along with eight other paintings by the artist. She said two of the works now repose in institutions: Granadian Arabesque at the Ateneo Art Gallery and Hills of Nikko at the Singapore National Gallery, both on loan from the Philippine National Museum. “It was the first time the country was invited to participate, thanks to lobbying by Purita Kalaw Ledesma and the Art Association of the Philippines,” she added.
Also on the auction roster was Fishermen by Ang Kiukok from 1981. Art critics contend that the early 1980s was the period when Ang Kiukok produced his best works. Add to the allure of this particular oil piece is its impressive size, measuring 40 x 80 inches, said Jaime Ponce de Leon. Three sinuously muscular fishermen cast their nets; there are seven gigantic fishes symbolizing the bounty of life. A red sun burns above. This theme is a most desired subject of the artist. Furthermore, the artist’s name “Ang” can be seen spelled out in the position of the fishermen.
There was, as well, Pila sa Bigas by Vicente Manansala (1979). Also a National Artist, Manansala was the most successful artist of his generation and he enjoyed the attention of the beautiful women of society who lined up to pay tribute to him in Binangonan. This work was among the most major pieces the artist created during that period—and is a masterpiece of the highest level.
Hat Weavers by Fabian de la Rosa, also among the works auctioned, is a masterpiece that no one knew existed in the midst of Hollywood. Actor George O’Brien acquired this important work when he visited the Philippines before World War II. There are two other known versions of this work in important private collections. O’Brien was a silent-movie heartthrob in the 1920s, doing several films for the director John Ford and would become a successful movie star of Westerns with the advent of the talkies well into the 1930s. In the 1940s, he reunited with old friend John Ford to do films in Asian countries, including Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
Another piece of note in the auction was the historic and intricately carved Isabelo Tampinco bed of Maxima Viola, best friend of Jose Rizal, known as the man who financed Noli Me Tangere, hence saving the book from never seeing print. The bed frame, in the form of a corona of an entablature, is carved with a serrated frieze of joined, upended triangles incised with diamond-shaped depressions that give an impression of stylized anahaw leaves. A boss is carved below the junction of each triangle, while a cymatium molding decorates the upper edge of the bed frame. The mattress support is caned in one piece. The footposts, carved in the shape of a short areca palm, has a crown shaft terminating in a stylized ionic capital consisting of a small anahaw leaf on a thorny stem at the center flanked by an ionic scroll. A garland of sampaguitas and ylang-ylang is entwined and hangs from the upper canes. Surrounding the bamboo frame are whiplash vines bearing camote leaves and flowers, while small anahaw leaf quadrants are carved at the corners. These are only some of the many details that can be admired in the bed’s design.
Momentous pieces from Nena Saguil, the first woman abstract artist in the Philippines, were also in the mix. A 1992 photograph of Saguil in her apartment-atelier captures the artist with one of her last paintings, showing Saguil in spectacles in the untitled 1988 work that was among the auction’s many highlights. The work reveals thousands of fine hairlines that rain on the painting, swerving into angles at the bottom.
Ponce de Leon noted, “It is rare for museum-quality artworks to be exhibited at a single place—rarer still that they all come to market and to be sold in a single sale.”
For information on the next Leon Gallery auction, visit the gallery’s web site.