Accompanied by a certificate issued by West Gallery confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

The laid-back atmosphere of rural life is typified in this depiction of a female vendor, created during the advanced stage of abstraction in Mauro Malang Santos’ metamorphosis. The seated female vendor makes one of her many appearances once again, as influenced by Picasso and Matisse to Manansala and Ang Kiukok, forming the basis of a style generous in its enumeration of images, ranges of colors, and evocation of parochialism. Taking his cue from the spaciousness of then contemporary layout designs in posters, magazines, and traditional collages, Malang allows for these pockets of negative for the eye to rest. Such spatial provisions manage to give his figurative composition a compact, balanced appearance, and avoids a crowded look of excess yet projecting light hearted festiveness. From his early days as a cartoonist at the Manila Chronicle to his breakthrough exhibit at the Philippine Art Gallery in the 50s, Malang had a penchant for illustrating the travails of life in the big city. As his works gradually evolved into the more mature abstract figurative style, he also began capturing Filipina women from mothers to market vendors. This Fruits Vendor piece perfectly captures the essence of Malang’s art: redolent of warm colors, modernist in approach, yet traditional in character and imagery