Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist

Exhibited: Art Association of the Philippines, “14th Annual Art Exhibition”, Philam Life Building, Manila, 4 July 1961. Award: Second Prize in Painting, Art Association of the Philippines, “14th Annual Art Exhibition”, Philam Life Building, Manila, 4 July 1961

Literature: Kalaw-Ledesma, Purita and Guerrero, Amadis Ma., The Struggle For Philippine Art, Vera-Reyes, 1974, pp. 189 Herrera, Ma. Victoria, Chikiamco, Clarissa, Reyes, Cid and Paras-Perez, Rod, The Life and Art of Lee Aguinaldo, Vibal Foundation, Inc. and Ateneo Art Gallery, 2011, Quezon City, pp. 164-165 (Illustrated)

ABOUT THE WORK

The dawn of the 1950’s beckoned for the young Lee Aguinaldo who was seeking to find his purpose through his art, while facing the challenges of being an artist and managing the family retail business empire. Years studying at the Culver Military Academy in Indiana, the United States, were he was summarily dismissed for his poor academic performance, begun his personal fascination and love for the arts. Returning to the Philippines, his father Daniel R. Aguinaldo established Daniel R. Aguinaldo Corporation (DRACOR), an investment and management holding company where he was employed in managing their logging business in Maco, Davao. For Lee, working in the corporate setting was taxing and tawdry, but he managed to infuse his creative and artistic presence into painting and experimentation that became his personal refuge of solace. An argument with his own father caused Lee to briefly resign from DRACOR brought from the stress of meeting his father’s expectations. In a letter dated the 18th of April 1960, Lee detailed his angst and personally wrote to his father, Daniel then stationed in Japan: “…I wanted a job that had a nature of uniqueness to it; something that I could attach my identity to—not just as a being working for the Aguinaldo Enterprise, but as a being to a NAME! Not just one of the Aguinaldos, but an Aguinaldo whose first name is Lee. This is the reason why I turned to painting; something I could attach my signature to, and be proud of…something that I had created wherein nobody else can duplicate or copy. I wanted a job wherein I could contribute myself to…I wanted to be able to make use of my creative faculties…not just as a cog in a machine, but as a thinking feeling human being, that is why I had to resign.” (Published in The Life and Art of Lee Aguinaldo. Vibal Foundation, Inc. and Ateneo Art Gallery, 2011.) As the pressures of pleasing himself and his father took its toll, Lee embarked on composing and experimenting with abstractions inspired by the abstract expressionist works of Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt. Here, Aguinaldo explored the monochromatic effect of abstraction in white and cream to portray the rapid skylines of development in the post-war years, hence abandoning his earlier voluminous abstract expressionist drip paintings done in the style of Jackson Pollock. White City done in 1961 is a snapshot of the commercial center of the city of Manila and the burgeoning financial district of Makati, that are slowly crowding out the former colonial vestiges of commerce and industry with the flagrant rise of skyscrapers that were being built across the city. Here, the artist fascinated with architecture and design sought to symmetrically albeit unknowingly proposed a concept of a utopian metropolis that is free from the afflictions of religion, culture and society in general. For Lee, his art yearned for an escape for his own predicaments and his struggles from his own father. Later on his life, Lee was asked to comment on how he was able to continue working on his art, while being kept with the burdensome workload at DRACOR, he replied: “What keeps me alive is knowing that I am capable of surprising myself, of being able to delight myself… being able to find out that you’re still capable of being inventive and creative and energetic.” This work became the start of Lee’s own resolution to become an artist in his own right, when it garnered him the Second Prize at the 14th Annual Art Exhibition of the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) on 14 July 1961, being the first of series of awards that he garnered at major art competitions throughout the course of his artistic career. From here on, Aguinaldo would eventually break from the chains of managing the family’s retail empire in the years to follow, and in the process become the foremost pioneer of Philippine non-objective art. References: Chikiamco, Clarissa, “Manifesting the Nation: Abstraction and the Inter-National” in Between Declarations and Dreams: Art in Southeast Asia in the 19th Century, National Gallery Singapore, 2015, pp. 44-55. Kalaw-Ledesma, Purita and Guerrero, Amadis Ma., The Struggle For Philippine Art, Vera-Reyes, 1974. Herrera, Ma. Victoria, Chikiamco, Clarissa, Reyes, Cid and Paras-Perez, Rod, The Life and Art of Lee Aguinaldo, Vibal Foundation, Inc. and Ateneo Art Gallery, Quezon City, 2011. Torres, Emmanuel, Philippine Abstract Painting, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila, 1994.