Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

Literature: “Nena Saguil : Landscapes and Inscapes, from the Material World to the Spiritual, Emmanuel Torres, Ateneo Art Gallery, (2003). Color photograph, Page 36.

ABOUT THE WORK

Emmanuel Torres reeled off the various firsts for Nena Saguil in his biography, “Nena Saguil : Landscapes and Inscapes, from the Material World to the Spiritual (2003).” He named her as the “first woman to pioneer in non-figurative, purely abstract art.” She was “the only woman included in the groundbreaking enterprise” of the another first — the First Exhibition of Non-Objective Art organized by the PAG in 1953 that featured Fernando Zobel, Victor Oteyza, Jose Joya and Lee Aguinaldo. In 1965, Torres had named Saguil one of the artists who he believed would have great success at the Venice Biennale — he had just returned from arranging the Philippine debut in this ‘Art Olympics’ the previous year. At the time, Torres noted that Nena Saguil had attracted the attention of Ernest Fraenkel “who started a book about her and which was being finished by the French art critic and historian Waldemar-George.” Saguil had moved to Paris in 1956 after two years’ study in Spain. Waldemar-George (1893 - 1970) has been described as “one of the most influential art critics between the two world wars.” He wrote the essay, “Les Illuminations de Nena Saguil (The Illuminations of Nena Saguil)” in 1969, shortly before his death. A photograph of “the artist in her apartment-atelier among her last paintings (1992)” shows Saguil in spectacles beside this work. It is in the style of Torres would call the “Billboard Shorthand” of her last decade. Torres even describes it as “A single coiled spring. A single spiraling ribbon or confetti.” Saguil had by this time recovered by an eye operation she underwent in the mid-1980s. The work is covered with thousands of fine hairlines that rain on the painting, swerving into angles at the bottom. The colors mirror the “lyrical transformation” that Torres noted happened in the late 1970s and mid-1980s — as Saguil moved from monochromes to “painting in prismatic colors”, thus the pinks, blues and yellows of “a rich paster luster.” -Lisa Guerrero Nakpil