Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist

ABOUT THE WORK

An Intimate World — Manansala’s women are positioned as if in an act of sensual negligence. The women seem to present themselves as highly fashionable albeit naked ornaments to the demimonde. One genre in which Manansala has immersed himself as an artist — is the nude figure, alone, or in pairs, yet the flow and drama of his line, his modeling, and use of space suggests worlds beyond the figure. Portraying the complexity of the human body is a challenge to any artist. Historically, the beauty and suppleness of the female figure has dominated the attention of innumerable artists including Manansala who developed a personal blend of seeming opposites: suavity overlying frankness. What stands out in the development of his drawing besides his established maturity and confidence, is his ability to capture subtle nuances of gesture and mood that add greater depth of intensity and sophistication to his work. If this work lacks the more formal posturing of Manansala’s dark, morena nudes, it astonishes for its compositional daring and its unerring sense of the elegant. A daring image of personal assurance sans clothes. The work is almost consistent with the grand manner of old — think of John Singer Sargent’s threesome of women.4