Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

ABOUT THE WORK

Arturo Rogerio Luz was very much the embodiment of the ‘International Style’ of the architect Walter Gropius whose linear, austere and hyper-functional aesthetic influenced several generations. Luz had spent a year at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York in 1950; and another year afterwards in Paris at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. Upon his return to Manila, he quickly became part of the second wave of abstract artists that came after the Neo-Realists H.R. Ocampo (1911 - 1978), Ramon Estella (1911-1991), Vicente Manansala (1913 -1981), Victor Oteyza (1913 - 1979), Cesar Legaspi (1917 - 1994), who more than a decade older than Luz. The Study for ‘Procession’ is a classic Luz parade of geometric shapes — the up-ended triangles, split circles, and straight lines that would become his signatures. The women are veiled, other figures carry candles. ‘Procession’ itself is listed by the National Commission on Culture and the Arts as of Luz’ “significant paintings.’ -Lisa Guerrero Nakpil