Provenance: Private Collection, USA

ABOUT THE WORK

Malang is one of our local painters who popularized and co-opted Cubism. Although the pioneers of Cubism Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque used muted colors, earth tones, and shades of blacks and grays like the Guernica, Malang and most of the Filipino Cubists had a “Fauvist” sense of color combining the Cubistic forms. Malang clearly had a preference for bright, happy, and festive colors. In this painting of a tree, the tree is deconstructed. It is interpreted in a Cubist fashion with huge leaves on top of the trunk. The tree is painted in shades of white, aqua blue, and sky blue and is luminous against the red background. The background in various shades of red — burgundy, fire engine red, tomato, and pink give the painting a feel of passion and effervescent joy. The cheerful colors and the Cubistic figure of a bluish white cat with a collar and pink ears sleeping on a branch amidst the huge leaves give this painting a delightful touch of whimsy.