Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Antonio belongs to the second wave of Filipino Modernists who continue to champion painting folk and rural motifs. Market vendors, farmers, sabungeros, and mother and child are some of the figures often depicted in his works. Art historians and critics note that his works are more expressionist compared to the works of Malang, Magsaysay-Ho, and Manansala. Critic Jolico Cuadra described Antonio’s art in 1968, writing that Antonio renders his works “in brisk, impatient strokes that shatter their natural boundaries. They are no longer simply decorative… but are now fiercely emotional symbols. The harshness of brush strokes and colors are expressionist explosions of form.” Influenced by Manansala, Angelito Antonio is one of the prime movers of the Cubist style and action painting in Philippine art. Combinations of acidic yellow and black and white in its washed-out tones are his personal color schemes, painting local themes in rich meaningfulness and vibrancy in linear clarity. Figures are distorted, together with other objects and elements of its environments. His works during the Seventies have a neo-realism style that is distinct from the other artists of his time. His more recent works have more intense opaque colors and are more contemporary in style.