This piece is accompanied by a certificate issued by Finale Art File confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

At a time when modern art was pursuing one formal absolute after another, Expressionists from all over were concerned with embracing the uninhabited natural world. It was their intention to promote a new society for man as much as a new style. With fierce compassion, they depicted a world of primal, even primitive emotions, and strident color. For the Philippines own Ang Kiukok, the most primal emotions are depicted in the mother and child image, framed in strident, even dissonant fields of color — deep red and green. In Western art, Cezanne, Monet and Renoir achieved their successes by choosing subjects carefully to suit their abilities. In the same way, Ang Kiukok, outside of his angst ridden themes, restricted himself to subjects in which he could recognize his own ideals of quiet, iconic beauty. Unlike in the style of cubism, Ang Kiukok does not fragment and dissect the human figures, leaving hints of their identity. For Ang Kiukok, cubism was not a fragmenting or dehumanizing principle but a structuring one. The exaggerated geometrical style lends itself successfully to the subject. Structured into planes and facets, the Mother and child figure acquires an essential simplicity and austere purity.