ABOUT THE WORK

Cenon M. Rivera (1922 - 1998) was an artist, writer, and teacher. A notable painter that began his career in the 1950s and later made significant contributions in the Philippine art. He studied at the University of Santo Tomas under the mentorship of Victorio Edades and taught in the same university until his retirement in 1994. He also apprenticed in Vertrate d’Arte Giuliani in Rome, making him one of the few Filipino artists trained in stained glass making. In 1952, he pioneered in graphic art by making distinctive eighty different sets of serigraphed Christmas cards and by 1956, began experimenting on monoprint, woodcut, linocut and lawanicut. He also published “Pintig ng Buhay at iba pang Katha,” a bilingual collection of short stories, poems, essays and other writings he did from 1938 to 1958. Rivera started a painting style characterized by horizontal and vertical grids for which he was best remembered. Noel T. Rivera, the artist’s son, describes in an interview that majority of his father’s paintings were more of a simple lined depiction of any subject simplified but full of elements of a given theme which may be executed as a stained glass piece as well. His elements were well thought of or researched and as seen on this masterpiece, the color harmonizes the emotion of the artwork’s subject.