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

ABOUT THE WORK

Apillar of Filipino Modernism, Mauro Malang Santos helped cultivate and develop the thriving visual arts landscape of the Philippines through his singular and unique artistic practice. Malang was already inclined to the arts at a relatively young age. At the age of 10, Malang’s parents arranged for him to study under Teodoro Buenaventura, an established Filipino artist trained in the classical style. Buenaventura’s influence stayed with Malang throughout his formative years, eventually influencing him to take up Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines’ School of Fine Arts. After a semester, Malang left the University in order to pursue the Manila Chronicle’s art department. He trained under cartoonist Liborio Gatbonton there, which sparked a great interest in him for cartoon illustration. He eventually developed a style around illustrations and cartoons, revolutionizing the field within the Philippine setting. But, after a decade of doing cartoons and illustrations, Malang eventually moved towards a style that utilized elements of cubism and abstraction in order to create a visual language that was uniquely his own. Influenced by Picasso and Matisse, to Manansala and Ang Kiukok, Malang’s latter style, as showcased by this particular piece, is 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.