Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by Juan Arellano Oscar Arellano
Ma. Margarita Arellano Ramos, thence by descen

ABOUT THE WORK

THE BOY OF ANGONO Botong Francisco, Painter of the Filipino Home Town by LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL Before the ascension of Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco as the maker and molder of the heroic, noble Filipino, he was first the chronicler of the Filipino ANGONO He was always, first and foremost, after all the most poetic inhabitant of that idealized world. Rafael Ma. Guerrero in his companion citation for Francisco’s National Artist Award, the second to be given in the country, describes his origins in Angono, which lay “some 40 kilometers east of Manila, nestled between the northern tip of Laguna de Bay and the rolling foothills of Rizal. By any standards, Angono is a small town, its population of 4,000, meager in 1973, a once sleeping fishing village that today bears telltale signs of Greater Manila’s encroaching urban explosion.” Botong captured “the limpid rhythm of life in this coastal town”, to be discovered over and over by succeeding generations “dreaming of forgotten folkways and simpler pleasures… for Botong himself once lived in Angono, fished in its waters and camped out on its hills. Mirrored in his works is a kindred nostalgia for a vanished grace, the untutored ease of a people raised on the bounty of the land and the sea; for such is the legacy of the painter who, like them, was himself a dreamer of the native dream.BOTONG The citation continues, “Among the townsfolk of Angono, he was simply known as “Botong”, a monicker he acquired early in life after an equally dark-skinned Cainta character noted in the provincial grapevine of the Rizal towns by that appellation. Botong’s full name, however, was Carlos Villaluz Francisco and later in life, whenever art patrons and friends from Manila would inquire after him as such, they would be met with stares by the Angono residents. Moreover to his town mates he was known better for his prowess at basketball — a game he enjoyed playing as often as he could — than for his skill with his paintbrush. “As the old adage goes, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy, Botong’s life is impossible to relate apart from the milieu of his hometown; for Angono was as much a part and parcel of the man as his memory is now an enshrined segment of the town lore,” wrote Guerrero. “His father was an ex-seminarian, a degree holder of humanities who, for some private reason, decided to settle in this idyllic fishing village to work her on the manufacture of local wine, eventually marrying a young Angono woman. Botong was five when his father died, an eventuality which strained the family’s circumstances. Still, Botong was given a proper education; an anachronism in pre-war Angono for their boys learned to fish at the side of their fathers and lived from the rich yield of the lake. “Even as a child, he was wont to draw and in time this inclination led Botong to enrol, upon his graduation from Rizal High School, at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts where he was a student from 1930 to 1935. This period of studies marked his first protracted absence from his beloved Angono.” THE BOY OF ANGONO Significantly, in his youth, Botong was among just seven boys from his hometown who went to school. And there are traces of these boys in Botong’s paintings of the period : sleeping siestas on tall trees, joining in the town’s colorful proceedings, its fiestas, and pilgrimages. The boys appear in cameos, catching their 40-winks in rough-hewn buckets, borne along the various parades, at other times, pretend-playing with the town band, its “Banda Uno” put together by Angono’s other favorite son, musician Lucio San Pedro and Botong’s cousin. They provide playful counterpoint to the lyrical renditions of the grownups at work and at play and are to be found in the earliest of Botong’s works, “Siesta” (1933) and “Pastoral (1933); and also “Pista sa Nayon” (1947) “Pilgrimage to Antipolo” (1959) and “Banda Angono” (1959). Botong’s world of Angono is actually seen (and appreciated) through the eyes of these innocent lads. Salvador Juban, his long-time protegé and artist assistant, would often further recall, Botong always painted from life and the things he knew. The work at hand, The Boy of Angono, depicts a youngster wearing the wide-brimmed straw hat depicted in all of Botong’s lively scenes. Here the boy sits, eyes slightly downcast, carrying a long stick (patpat) and sitting beside an loosely woven fish basket to net the lake's dalag (fish) which could be easily trapped in the straw mouth. THE MAGNIFICENT SEPTEMBER AUCTION 2023 9 8 AN INTERSECTION WITH JUAN ARELLANO Botong Francisco’s artistic trajectory would intersect with Victorio Edades who would mastermind the creation of a series of important murals for the established architect Juan Nakpil. All three played various parts at the University of Sto. Tomas; Edades was in fact, head of the College of Architecture and Fine Arts. Nakpil and Francisco were professors in various capacities. In 1936, Botong with Edades and Galo Ocampo, would create the first of his career-defining murals, the powerful vision titled “Rising Philippines”, commissioned by Arch. Nakpil for the Capitol film palace owned by the Rufino family. Arellano and Nakpil both belonged to the same elite architectural and artistic circle and would become patrons of the Botong Francisco, who was himself rising in both capacity and stature.