Provenance: A gift from Ambassador Elizalde to his wife Susan Magalona

ABOUT THE WORK

He was a diplomat whose career took him into many of the prewar and postwar world’s chanceries. She was the legendary face that defined the 1930s and 1940s. The personalities of Joaquin Miguel Elizalde and Susan Magalona complimented, supported and enriched each other. And their art collection is of a reflection of this harmony. In a country where rank and privilege are usually determined by high office, Joaquin Miguel Elizalde’s lifetime of diplomatic activity alone would entitle him to the status of Elder Statesman. Elizalde was appointed as a Resident Commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1938, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Quintin Paredes and served until his resignation in 1944 and became a member of the war cabinet of President Manuel L. Quezon in 1941. In 1946, he became a member of the board of governors of the International Monetary Fund and of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development until 1950, then appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Philippines to the United States in 1946, in which capacity he served until 1952. He also served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines from 1948 under the administration of President Elpidio Quiriino and an economic adviser to the Philippine Mission at the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador from 1956 to 1965. As head of Elizalde & Co. Inc, he has done a lot for the economic development of the islands. He has been the president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, twice president of Casino Espanol, and president of the National Development Co. He was a member and director of the Manila Polo Club, and is one of the founders and directors of the Los Tamaraos Polo Club at Camp Claudio, Tambo, Paranaque, Rizal. He left, in April 1938, for the London International Sugar Conference as Philippine envoy under the U.S. delegation. Susan Magalona was Negros' Helen of Troy during her time. She first came into the attention of prewar Manila’s beau monde with the fashionable photos that came out in the leading high end magazines of the era as the Ramon Roces publications’ Graphic and countless others. Her glamour as captured by photographers soared above an era’s earthbound troubles, what with the end of the Great Depression being felt in the American island-colony. A published photo of Susan Magalona was to ordinary publicity what a Rolls Royce was to an ordinary car. Indeed it’s hard to imagine a survey of Manila’s prewar women of renown in which her name would not be invoked. Her beauty was legendary - the pictures on the wall validate that. Tradition has it that suitors would line up every evening, and some would even climb up a tree just get a glimpse of her beauty...the stuff movies are made for. The couple was right at home in the pinnacle of society. And their collection of art express the almost physical pleasure they get in looking at beautiful things. They are not there to merely decorate the house but to make one’s heart happy. The art compliments their mutual affection and vivid personalities. If the vast and generous spirit of the Philippines in the past mid-century can be captured and personified, Juan Miguel Elizalde and Susan Magalona are the couple to do it. Antonio Garcia Llamas' Indays created a sensation in Madrid during his solo exhibitions at the Circulo de Bellas Artes de Madrid in 1941. For that event he was even heralded as a Filipino Gauguin, his painting being a trio of Filipino nudes with their Malayan features emphasized. The same slant eyed Inday is represented in this painting of a shirtless farm worker serenading her. But unlike the flat, cut-out like women of the real Gauguin, Llamas Garcias are more voluptuous, realistic. Antonio Garcia Llamas belonged to the conservative school of painting as a result of his training in UP and at the Academia in Madrid. He was one of the best-known portrait artists of post-war Philippine high society. He taught painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Santo Tomas, receiving commissions for portraits, as well as ecclesiastical murals. One of Garcia Llamas' students was Juvenal Sanso, who attended evening classes at UST after graduating from the University of the Philippines. He recalls how Garcia Llamas was "courtesy personified", a true gentleman of the old school. Friends remember the "old-world elegance" in his manner and demeanour. A natural joker, he was ever popular and the constant life of every party. Antonio Garcia Llamas immortalized the beauties of his day – the aforementioned Rosario "Toto" Lopez Locsin, Bebe Lammoglia Virata, Pacita Madrigal Gonzalez, Vicky Abad-Santos Madrigal, former First Lady Luz Banzon Magsaysay, Vicky Quirino Delgado, Virginia Romulo, Tessie Jugo Yulo, Pil Tuason Manzano, Nati Tuason Salcedo as well as his relatives, first cousin Cristina Castañer Ponce Enrile, Amparito Llamas Lhuiller, Maritina Llamas Araneta, among many others. According to family lore, Antonio Garcia Llamas felt slighted when, his name was not among the artists honored in the newly developed San Lorenzo village (whose streets pay tribute to artists like Luna, Amorsolo, Edades, Garcia Villa, among others). He left the country in 1967, and settled in Madrid, where he continued to paint, while participating in the activities of a theatre group. The Commission for Overseas Filipinos honored the memory of the artist with the Pamana ng Pilipino Award given posthumously in 2000 — an award that he shares with art luminaries like Anita Magsaysay-Ho, David Medalla, Pacita Abad, among others.