Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Born in Sarrat, Ilocos Sur in 1913, Igarta was often noted as having a glint of idealism and opportunity in his eyes. He arrived on the shores of Stockton, California by ship at the age of 18, merely at the cusp of adulthood. He then worked as a farmhand harvesting asparagus for a few years. Hell-bent on exploring what life has to offer, Igarta left his post as a farmhand and moved to Philadelphia where he’d eventually come face-to-face with fate. While working as a janitor at a hospital, a doctor found one of Igarta’s seascape sketches immaculately rendered on a piece of paper. After fearing the worst, Igarta confessed to the doctor that the sketch was his and pleaded to not be let go. But, instead of reprimanding him, the doctor further inquired about Igarta, such as whether or not he had any formal artistic training. When Igarta said drawing was just a self-confessed insipid hobby of his, and that he had no formal training whatsoever, the doctor, quick to regard his untapped potential, immediately offered to pay for his formal training at an art school. After accepting the opportunity, Igarta quickly climbed the ranks as a rare and genuine prodigy amongst his peers at the National Academy of Design in New York City. His groundbreaking works that combined figuration and abstraction quickly caught the praise of even the most heartless and prudent art critics, catapulting him towards new levels of acclaim previously unimaginable for a person with his sort of background. Igarta was also the first Filipino artist to have ever exhibited at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art, paving the way for future artists such as Leo Valledor, Alfonso Ossorio, and Pacita Abad. He then went on to exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts, Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, and Artisans Gallery in New York City. His work “Freedom!” from the United Nations Series (1945), done in gouache and pencil, is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC. This piece showcases Igarta’s novel experimentations with hardedged abstraction and abstract expressionism. Although often touted as a neo-realist in his early years, Igarta time conversing and working with the American Masters of the 30s and 40s led him on a path of rigorous artistic experimentation and self-reflection. What is shown here is not a shift in predisposition, but the unraveling of expression. From his neo-realist outings to his abstract works, Igarta merely shows us the same message albeit wrapped up in a different medium.