PROPERTY FROM THE CELIA FLOR COLLECTION

León Gallery wishes to thank Mr. Christian M. Aguilar for confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist, and thence by direct descent to its present owners.

ABOUT THE WORK

Much like his musically-oriented father Atty. Mariano A. Aguilar, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz was a virtuoso of his own right. While he had initially followed in his father’s footsteps by studying law at the Ateneo De Manila, Alcuaz would eventually diverge from the pursuit of a legal profession and instead carve his own path as an artist—a fate perhaps already written in the stars by the young Federico’s festering inclination towards the visual arts in his teen years and the aficion for music in the Alcuaz household. It was the combination of these two aficion—music and the visual arts—that molded the virtuoso that is Federico Aguilar. Although renowned for his work in figurative and genre paintings, the abstract pieces in his oeuvre are just as well something to write home about. While the rhythm in his figurative works are often to be found in the gestural character of his brushwork, rhythm in Alcuaz’s more abstract pieces lies in the visual patterns and meanderings of the piece, thus imbuing it with an intrinsic musicality. Such a character is particularly apparent in this 1967 piece, just a year before Alcuaz embarked on making his equally musical abstract tapestries. It is also undoubtedly the result of a well-traveled artistic career of what printmaker and art critic Rod Paras-Perez calls ‘concert-painting,’ alluding to the artist’s travels akin to concert performance tours throughout which Alcuaz would make small abstract symphonic pieces in watercolor. (Pie Tiausas)