An early work by Angelito Antonio, Habang Buhay was made by the revered Filipino modernist the succeeding year after he was awarded in 1970 the prestigious Thirteen Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It was the inaugural edition of the would-be biennial awards tradition, conceived by Roberto Chabet, the first curator of the CCP Museum of Fine Arts Gallery. Along with Antonio were other inaugural awardees, including Bencab, Eduardo Castrillo, and Jaime de Guzman.
Habang Buhay also fortuitously came in succession after Antonio won the two top prizes at the 23rd Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) Annual Competition and Exhibition on December 2, 1970: First Prize for “Oracion” and a Special Award for “Procession.” Antonio’s win in the said iteration of the AAP Annual marked a high point in his then-burgeoning career, seven years after he first won an AAP award at the 1963 Semi-Annual: 2nd Prize for “Deposition.”
Antonio had also been teaching at the then-University of Santo Tomas College of Architecture and Fine Arts (CAFA), where he obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1963.
The work at hand is dominated by an acid yellow palette, a color that characterized Antonio’s progression from the black-and-white series of works he made at the very beginning of his painting career. Antonio employs explicit distortion of his subjects, and his endowment of flatness seamlessly blends the human figures into their environment, bringing out an inherent atmosphere that visually articulates the enduring commitment of a mother towards rearing and ensuring the welfare of her child. In a sense, Antonio evokes that a mother’s love and care knows no boundaries, transcending beyond material conditions and even life itself. (Adrian Maranan)
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF A VERY DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN
León Gallery wishes to thank Mr. Marcel Antonio for confirming the authenticity of this lot
Literature: Reyes, Cid. Conversations on Philippine Art. Manila: Cid Reyes and The Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1989. Illustrated on page 186.