PROPERTY FROM THE DOÑA NENE QUIMSON COLLECTION

ABOUT THE WORK

Benedicto Cabrera has been drawing portraits since his adolescent years. As a student at the Arellano High School in Manila, BenCab produced black and white portraits of prominent personalities of his time, such as James Dean and Elvis Presley, and sold them to his classmates for ten pesos. After dropping out of college in 1963, BenCab ventured into his first full-time job at the United States Information Service (USIS) as a layout artist. There, he made a portrait of then-US president Lyndon B. Johnson, used for one of the local USIS publications. Also, during this time, he drew portraits at night in a popular bohemian hangout, eventually making a name for himself on Manila's art scene. While Bencab has done portraits of distinguished and influential figures, his oeuvre is brimming with the faces of the masses—ordinary Filipinos he encountered every day. In this piece, BenCab draws an image reminiscent of his iconic Sabel. The sepia tone implies the artist's intense emotionalism. BenCab's art has always been committed to searching for a distinctive mark for our national identity, most evident in his Larawan series. Thus, it is not surprising that part of this undertaking revolves around what Cid Reyes referred to as a "kaleidoscopic tapestry of every facet of being Filipino."