PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF A DISTINGUISHED COUPLE

Leon Gallery wishes to thank Mr. Soler Santos for confirming the authenticity of this lot

ABOUT THE WORK

The art of Mauro “Malang” Santos is often seen as a celebration of folk life and the indomitable spirit of the Filipino people. His works never stressed the trials and tribulations that other artists would usually portray in their depictions of the common people. However, that is not to imply that his works were willfully ignorant of his surroundings. Instead, they were regarded as revolutionary in the way they evoked hope and upliftment without snubbing the social realities that bound them to the ground. Ever since his career as a cartoonist to his breakthrough as a painter, Malang always had a penchant for illustrating the realities of daily life. Malang adapted an abstract and cubist approach as his practice when he traded his pen and ink for oils and acrylics. As his art matured into an abstract figurative style, he also began capturing women dressed in traditional clothing. The serene atmosphere of rural life is typified in this depiction of a fruit vendor, a period of abstraction in Malang’s metamorphosis. His influences from Picasso and Matisse to Manansala and Ang Kiukok formed the basis of a style that was liberal in its enumeration of images, range of colors, and evocation of parochialism. Fruit Vendor from 2003 perfectly captures the essence of Malang’s art — modernist in approach yet traditional in imagery. (P.I.R.)