ABOUT THE WORK

This piece is accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo confirming the authenticity of this lot Provenance: The seller's family story in the PI started in the mid-1920s when LG ‘Jimmy’ and Elizabeth James, newly married Minnesotans, crossed the Pacific Ocean to take up their posts as teachers in the Tarlac Province. The two were among approximately 2,000 teachers sent by the US Board of Education over a period of time to enhance K-12 education in the Territory. The couple lived and taught in Tarlac for at least 3 years before joining the American-owned company called ALATCO — AL Ammens Transportation Co. —headquartered in Iriga, Camarines Sur. The company manufactured and operated some 400 trucks, autos and buses throughout southern Luzon. Jimmy was an executive group along with Ralph Rawson, Leon Grove and Remy Kucharchkan. Patricia and Peter James, born in 1931 and 1935 respectively, were raised at the company compound in Iriga until December 8, 1941 when the Japanese invaded the Philippines. The four Jameses along with Uncle Ralph Rawson, Leon Grove and his wife Clare, and Remy Kucharichkan packed up and fled into hiding. They camped in the hills near their compound, were captured by the Japanese and imprisoned in Naga, were freed by Filipino guerrillas, escaped to the home of friends on the Lagonoy coast, sailed by night to the Caramoan Peninsula where they were accepted and taken in by the mayor of Parubcan, Mr. Teodorico Presentacion. Under his protection, and through his loyalty and sacrifice, the group spent the most of the war evading the Japanese by hiding in the jungles of the remote peninsula. By the end, they had moved and made camp 17 times. The family was finally rescued by the US Army-Air Force in the Lagonoy Gulf in March 1945 and were sent ‘home’ to Betty’s family in Minnesota to recuperate. Jimmy returned quickly to the PI to try to rebuild ALATCO but was unsuccessful in securing investments. He founded other businesses in Manila and was joined by his family in 1947 where they remained until 1950. It was during this period in Manila that Ralph Rawson and his wife Katherine were likely to have purchased Amorsolo’s 1949 Mt. Mayon painting — an image that figured so prominently in their lives before the war. Along with other (smaller) paintings, the Jameses bought Amorsolo’s painting of the family under a mango tree dated 1950. Because of tensions between the U.S. and Korea, the Jameses and the Rawsons along with many of their friends and business associates left the Philippines to retire on the West Coast in 1950. The James family retired in the Bay Area, the Rawsons near Seattle. Peter James along with his wife Mimi returned to the Philippines for extended visits in 1986 and then again with Jennifer and her husband Scott in 1999. Jennifer and Scott with their three children went back in 2007 to visit the places of Peter’s childhood that in spite of the war he had remembered so fondly, as well as to pay respect to the descendants of Mr. and Mrs. Presentacion who had been key in helping the James family survive. The two Amorsolo paintings were separately inherited by Peter James: one from his parents and the other from the Rawsons his godparents between the late 1970s and early ‘80s. After Peter’s death in 2005 the paintings remained with his wife Mimi in the family home until it sold last year. The paintings were then passed on to his children Jennifer James-Wilson and Jeffrey James.