Conclusion
Allow me to finish today the 50-year timeline of The Saturday Group that I started here two Mondays ago. The group celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with an exhibit, Saturday Group Gold: Celebrating 50 Years in Art, at the Main Gallery of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. You can still view the show until the 6th of May.
The Current Saturday Group Years (1994 to present)
Then president of the group, Cesar Legaspi, died on April 7, 1994. After this sad period, there was confusion over the new leadership as some members believed it should be Mauro “Malang” Santos who should become the next leader because Legaspi entrusted the leadership of the group to him. On the other hand, there were members who said that Onib Olmedo, as the elected president, should take the lead. Olmedo, however, resigned immediately and some artists left the group to put up the “Saturday Morning Group,” a factional circle that was formed in protest.
Under Malang, the group conducted regular sessions at the Corinthian Gardens and the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. The Annual Group Exhibition also became mandatory at this time. In 1995 Ben Francisco designed the official logo and the group also started a successful fundraising campaign in the same year, Portraits for a Cause.
In 1996 The Saturday Group started producing the monthly newsletter Saturday Balita. (This would run until the year 2001.) The sketching sessions, which were sometimes being held at the Giordano office in Quezon City, also started happening at the Shangri-La Mall. The following year, the group visited Hong Kong courtesy of the group fund. Arturo Luz, a Saturday Group Member, also received the National Artist award in 1997.
Malang resigned in 1998, and appointed Cris Cruz as the new president. The group’s constitution was drafted and adopted that year. The next year, the group went to visit Thailand. James Onglepho also opened Asia Art Gallery to the group in the same year. Shortly after, in 2001, Frank “Paquing” Verano was assigned as the new leader of the group and, also in the same year, Ang Kiukok received the National Artist status.
The group gets a new leader once again in 2002, when Buds Convocar started his leadership. In the same year, the first fundraising art raffle was also held. This was seen to become an annual event that could help fund the group’s outings and charity projects, including scholarships for Fine Arts degrees of some of its members. Still in the same year, Judy Araneta-Roxas provided the group with gallery space at Alimall in Cubao, free of charge. The Crucible Gallery also provided the staff for the space, also at no cost to the group. In April that year, the art exhibit Unang Sibol inaugurated the gallery.
Alya Honasan published The Saturday Group Book in 2003, as Jose Joya received the National Artist award (posthumously) also in the same year. Three years later, in 2006, it was Bencab’s turn to receive the citation.
The group got its first female president in the person of Anna de Leon in 2007, as Migs Villanueva published The Saturday Group, a hardbound full-color coffee-table book, also in the same year. She would later serve as president from 2013 to 2017. In 2009 another Saturday Group member, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, received the National Artist award.
More recently, just last year (2017), Omi Reyes was elected president of the group. The Saturday Group Gallery also opened in Shangri-La Mall in the same year. And, together with Reyes, I helped the group obtain its certification of incorporation, after 49 years, as the “Manila Premier Saturday Artists Group Inc.,” a duly registered artists association.
It’s been a long journey for the Saturday Group and now, 2018, we are celebrating 50 colorful years in the Philippine art and culture scene. My warm congratulations to everyone who is, and has been a part of this interesting and meaningful endeavor. More power to the Saturday Group! Long live the artists!