Accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Emma Navarro confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Provenance: Maggie dela Riva Collection

ABOUT THE WORK

Choosing a signature style was irrelevant for National Artist Jeremias “Jerry” Elizalde Navarro. Throughout his artistic career, he would constantly shift painting styles, from minimalism to abstract expressionism, cubism, pointillism, assemblage, and a distorted figurative style. He would also steer away from art trends to uphold creative freedom, exploring and excelling in various art fields; his perception of Modernist freedom comes within his Asian sensibility as one of the pioneers of the movement in the Philippines. This piece, The Music Makers, exhibits figures rendered in an engaging fragmentary cubist style, made charged by rich color combinations. In the depiction of a familiar folk image of subjects, his mastery in rendering human figures through his style of choice—as versatile and prolific as he was—is showcased. His spontaneous geometric elements noted in his early works during the fifties are also apparent, denoting a vision of composition, mood, and feeling. Navarro held his first one-person show at the Philippine Art Gallery in 1954. He also won First Prize at the 1952 AAP’s Second Watercolor Exhibit. In 1969 and 1971, he represented the Philippines at the Sao Paolo Biennale in Brazil. Among the sophisticated artists of his time, being a multidisciplinary artist who made a mark in both the art and advertising fields in the country, he garnered the National Artist Award in 1999.