Provenance: Acquired directly from the Artist as a gift to Miss Carmen Kierulf Fletcher and from thence, by descent to the present owner

ABOUT THE WORK

Painted from the Heart of the Artist Edades Presents a Gift to a Debutante by LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL Victorio Edades would be anointed in 1976 as the Father of Philippine Modern Art with his recognition as National Artist. It would require him to travel four long decades from the time he was given his first commission in 1936 by the architect Juan Nakpil for the Rufino’s film palace, the Capitol Theater. He would recruit for it, a protege, Carlos Botong Francisco and his best friend, Galo Ocampo. The mural was called, suitably, “Rising Philippines” and would establish them as a triumvirate of modern art with voices to be reckoned with. Edades would eventually settle in at the University of Santo Tomas where he established not only the Department of Architecture but also the College of Fine Arts, recruiting like-minded individuals for the faculty — Manansala, for one — and teaching many other future stars including Nena Saguil, Anita Magsaysay Ho. He would become the art world’s beloved and eternal mentor — at one point, even becoming the president of the Philippine Art Gallery, the country’s first gallery dedicated to the cause of abstract art. At the UST he would also school entire generations of Filipinos with a sense of culture and the arts; and it is also here where he would meet Miss Carmen Kierulf Fletcher, to whom he made a gift of this painting. “Edades was her professor,” her family recalls, “and he treated her like she was his favorite student.” One day, as family lore has it, when she was in the studio of Edades, she admired a very large painting of his. He told her that the title was “Elegant Debutante” and gave her the painting, going so far as personally delivering it to the family residence in Retiro, La Loma, Quezon City. It would thenceforth have a place of honor in their home since Miss Fletcher much admired Edades and loved the painting very much since it reminded her of her professor and represented his kindness towards her during her UST days. The work at hand is of a bare-shouldered young lady dressed in the purest of white with two roses decorating the frock; one is in full bloom, the other is only just beginning to blossom. She carries a traditional debutante’s bouquet of more red roses in her right hand. The fullness of the figure has the sensibility of Cezanne’s figures that Edades would introduce to Manila when he first returned to Manila, brimming with the notion of modern art. It is the perfect paean to a young woman Edades admired, embellished with a title he himself chose.