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A book about Mabini Art comments by late Prof. Santiago Albano Pilar


"Mabini” as epithet to mean art for the tourist trade shot off from graduates of Ivy League schools and such as who flaunted their familiarity with the slogans of Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetes.


In fact, UP conservatives Romeo Enriquez and Gabriel Custodio opened their art schools in Mabini St. and nearby, while artists, their seniors like Crispin Lopez and Felix Gonzales trained artists in the guild or apprentice manner. And as modernism gained popularity and indeed proved its relevance, the conservatives of Mabini with Antonio Dumlao and Miguel Galvez leading produced pieces whose vigor stand comparison with the 1950’s easel paintings of Arturo Luz and Jose Joya. Examples of Neo-realist works by Dumlao and Galvez were collected by and could be found in the consummate connoisseurs of the times like Emilio Aguilar Cruz, Aurelio Alvero, Jorge Vargas and Chito Madrigal.


Francisco Paco Gorospe Sy opened his art gallery in 1968, 13 years after 1955, the historic year in which the conservatives walked out of the show organized by the Art Association of the Philippines. These senior painters lived up to the prestige they earned until their demise in later years.


(more to follow or read the book Revisiting Mabini Art, available through the social media channels of Magkaisa)












 

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