PROPERTY FROM THE LETICIA RAMOS SHAHANI COLLECTION

Accompanied by a certificate issued by Finale Art File confirming the authenticity of this lot

ABOUT THE WORK

In the Madonna portrait at hand, Manansala has replaced the brown angles and patchwork planes of his first famous work, “Madonna of the Slums” — which only served to emphasize the overcrowding and dire straits of the squatter colony — with a more structured but still geometric backdrop. Inventively, these are fashioned out of aluminum paint tubes, beaten flat and cut into various shapes and sizes, no two alike, silhouetting the mother and child as well. In the same 1958 interview, Manansala would confide his own hard times during the War years, uncertain where to find enough paint to make a precarious living. He related how he was was forced “to scrape old hardened paint, grind it into powder, and mix it with coconut oil” in order to continue to accept the commissions for paintings he depended on. The present Madonna may thus be viewed as partinstallation, part affirmation of a more prosperous period in his life, created from the most precious material an artist could have. Paint — the expensive imported kind, indeed — was now in plentiful supply for Manansala as he had become the country’s most sought-after artist. The pliable metal is covered in luminous greens and blues, accented with bright oranges. It is an optimistic even joyous work, no longer expressing the biting commentary on social ills of his original pieces. The Madonna was a theme that Manansala would return to over the decade. “I paint to express what I feel and to satisfy myself,” he was quoted as saying in 1958. “I paint not what I see but what I feel.” As a result, the interview noted, “Most of the time, it takes Manansala many paintings to express fully what he feels about a certain subject. Again it takes him many paintings to exploit fully a form that captures his fancy. Hence, he usually paints a series of canvases about only one subject, each painting totally different from the other. Not only that, he seems to express his ideas and emotions in other forms. It is this desire that has prompted him to branch out to sculpture. He wants to see how his paintings will look like in three dimensions. When he has spent his emotions through self-expression, only then is he satisfied.” Manansala would thus not only create paintings and sculptures of his favorite themes such as the Madonna but also charcoal drawings, wood-cuts and watercolors, Western and Orientalist. The mixed-media work at hand, however, is the only one known of its kind but is instantly recognizable in the style he preferred to called “mannerism”. It is unsurprising that this unusual rendition of the transcendental mother would belong to the feminist and cultural leader Senator Leticia Ramos Shahani. Sister to one Philippine President, cousin to another, the Senator was also an important political force in her own right. She would pioneer the concept of women’s rights, and the female role in diplomacy and governance in the Philippines as well as on the international stage. Senator Shahani was also previously an ambassador and a leading figure in the United Nations. She would also coauthor the bill that would create the influential National Commission for Culture and the Arts which continues to shape the cultural agenda of the country to this day